Kiwi hit it on the head. That was a MAJOR hurdle for me, and now I've devised a method that I believe in whole heartedly and and allow myself to know that I will lose, and the market can in fact do whatever it wants. I in no way can move the market (yet *evil grin*) and know its the rest of the people that will move it my way or not. It kinda stinks to think about being dependent on other people....but it's the way it goes.
Do you keep a spreadsheet of your trades with data that goes along pretty deep with the trades? I recently started doing that (thanks keymoo) and it has done WONDERS to help me mentally. Things like the amount of time it takes the trade to hit, how long did the trade last...mine are Market Profile based so I have the size of the
value area, did we open outside value? If so, by how much? How much heat was taken on the trade....if I got stopped out, how far did it go past my stop and if I had just reversed instead of stopping the position how much heat would I have taken before profitability came my way?
Having a plan of attack is awesome, and if your setups aren't working in this market, definitely try and either find ones that are more suited to rangebound markets (we might be in this one for a while) or maybe look for a different instrument to trade that favors your setups. There's so many different things to trade out there that something is bound to have a style that fits the way you want to trade.
Just my measley $.02