Recent trading thoughts - Accepting losses that should have happened.

On the long journey of trading, what needs to be clarified the most may not be how to profit, but how to correctly view the losses that are bound to come.
Most of these are not mistakes, but rather inevitable occurrences.
When you enter the planned pullback area after confirming a turn at a certain level according to the rules, only to encounter a deeper adjustment; or when you decisively follow a breakout, but the market quickly reverses, throwing you out of the game—these losses are clearly labeled: "in-system losses".
They are the "trial and error cost zone" that you reserved for yourself at the beginning of your strategy design, which is part of the rules and not your mistake.
Therefore, long-term trading performance is by no means a simple aggregation of short-term wins and losses. Short-term profits or losses are accompanied by significant randomness; a fortunate "buy at the lowest point" and a stop-loss triggered by following the rules have no inherent value difference in a singular context.
You should not doubt yourself for short-term consecutive losses, just as you should not take pride in a few lucky profits; they are a necessary process before the dust of probability settles and the very rhythm of the system's breathing.
The real dividing line lies in the long term. If your capital curve still fails to show a robust upward trend after crossing enough market cycles, and instead continues to wear down, then the essence of the problem has transcended from "single-instance correctness" to an inquiry into "system effectiveness."
The predicament at this time can rarely be simply attributed to "poor strategy" or "wrong timing."
It is an overall disorder of a complex system: it may be that your risk tolerance no longer matches market fluctuations, it may be that your mindset has quietly distorted execution under long-term pressure, or it may be that the strategy itself is gradually failing in a changing market, while you remain oblivious.
At this point, what needs to be examined is not the part, but the entire ecosystem—from cognition, to rules, and then to the full chain of execution and feedback.
Therefore, a mature trader has a clear ruler in their heart. One end measures and calmly accepts those "planned losses," viewing them as a necessary tuition fee for getting closer to the truth; the other end remains vigilant, alert to those worthless "unplanned losses" caused by system disruptions.