Many (if not all) traders face challenging moments when nothing seems to be going right—trades going the opposite way, low market volatility, or maybe just not reaching trading goals you’ve set for yourself. It can be difficult to keep going at times but yet many traders remain either stoic or even motivated despite discouraging setbacks.
For those who have experienced really tough trading days…
It’s an interesting question. 
After we have involved in trading for a longer period, it will eliminate many aspects in our life. Getting older is another story. it reduces my expectation, greed and emotion. These things maintain my focus.
Understanding exactly the definition of risk in trading will surely maintain how to manage our capital. I am clearly understand how the greed will ruin my goals.
By understanding the true meaning of market dynamic, it drives to keep learning, having a deeper research and finally inventing different ways to have better benefit from market.
I know you don’t want me to say this, but in my twelve years on the charts, I’ve realized one thing:
Trading is boring.
But here’s the good news. Once you let it become boring, you will surely start making a profit. You will let go of all the endless strategy-making, indicator placing, news-watching, and bad advice you’re getting. It will simply become a means to an end, which is to make money.
As a new trader, you get excited about learning all the nuances of trading:
–Candlesticks
–Indicators
–News cycles
–Macro eco analysis
–Strategy after strategy after new strategy
–Backtesting all your new strategies
As a new trader, you spend countless hours with online courses, chart analysis, and community forums. Fast-forward 12 years, and I spend about 30 seconds looking at a chart with nothing on it but candles. And in that time, I know exactly where to enter and exit, if I’m going to pull the trigger at all.
Again, profitable but boring.
Every trader has losing days and winning days, both professional traders and losing traders. The difference is in their cognitive approaches.
Losing traders are outcome focused, they measure how well things are going by their profits and losses. So they’re on a constant emotional roller coaster ride with their wins / losses thus will easily lose motivation after a string of losses.
Professional traders are process oriented, they measure how well things are going by how well they adhere to their process. And since their processes are often designed around their own personalities, it’s easy for them to stay motivated even after a string of losses, they just need to continue to be themselves.
Nicely put
Trading is very difficult. Besides having a good strategy. Many aspect such as risk management, trading psychology such as fear and greed should well controlled too which is so damn hard. 
I think its because we love what we do, so that we are willing to keep learning, learning & learning to get better and refuse to quit. A big win is not what I want the most (although I am definitely very happy about that 
) . But, I want to be profitable consistently. If you just chasing the profit, you will eventually quit later.
I am fortunate, to have a brother who can guide me when things get tough, He is smart & wonderful. Sometimes, I am quite amazed I have not quit yet 
sometimes cry a lot in the corner alone to release all my emotion after things not as I expected because of my own stupidity and mistakes.
But, I have not failed yet as long as I am not quit. How to maintain the discipline? I will try to read again my journal to remember the times when experience a big loss because lack of discipline. With this way, at least my loss is not wasted and I can gain something from that. Who knows I am just about an inch to be a good trader? Hopefully.
Have a nice weekend all… 
I stay motivated by focusing on improving the skill rather than looking at the result. When I experience drawdown it is another opportunity to hone my psychology. When I have losing days I can go and look at various skills like entry point, trade management, sizing etc. Everything is an opportunity to learn. When you start enjoying the process of becoming better at a skill the results are less relevant.
The surest way of maintaining discipline as a trader is to develop your trading mindset and habits. Self-awareness plays a pivotal in relation to the development of trading mindset. Also always engage yourself in positive habits like reading books, waking up early, listening to music and curtail your social media by following industry experts who post trading threads that might be insightful and help you with the psychology aspect of it.
After I couldn’t cope with discretionary trading at all, I fortunately handed it over to my Expert Advisors in automated trading and now I sleep much better 
The robots have the strategy and the discipline, and they are very insistent in executing it. Unlike I ever could! 
@Love88, I felt compelled to reply after reading your post. You’re much closer to becoming a good trader than you realize. The root cause of your problems is obvious and there’s an easy fix, but it’s not what inexperienced traders want to hear.
Trading is actually quite easy (you can be profitable with sloppy random coin flip entries) and VERY boring, feeling excitement or depression from wins/losses is a clear sign that the trader is gambling. This usually happens to inexperienced traders who are undercapitalized, trade positions sizes that are too large for their account size and / or aren’t managing the downside.
They also become too distracted by the emotional roller coaster of wins / losses and end up learning nothing about how to trade consistently. Consistent trading starts with consistently eliminating the distracting emotions.
Forget “trading psychology” (it will never fix the gambling mentality), the quickest and best solution is to reduce position size until winning and losing actually feels boring even with sloppy entries and exits, then all the problems with risk management, trading psychology, fear and greed will instantly go away. Just thinking clearly and making emotion-free decisions alone will immediately improve results to break-even or better. This is when the profitable trading journey and the learning actually starts.
Hi, I try to be concise as possible, what keeps me motivated when facing setbacks is I always think about the " why" I started the trading journey.
Always remind yourself why you get into trading or whatever venture that you are about to get yourself into.
For me, my why is finding ways to quit my job. I am tired with all the office politics and drama and dealing with people’s behaviour.
I can give you all the stereotypes, cliche advise but the “why” is what will keep you go through the up down of trading.
Now, 3 years in trading ,I am consistent, know when to trade and not to trade and earn enough to sustain my lifestyle.
Dear @Dollar_McGavin,
It is exactly what I want to hear!!
You know what? I started to think I am making things too complicated. I will pay much more attention to my risk 1st from now on. I admit that my biggest loss is caused by my poor risk management by adding too much unnecessary position and even worse, with big lot size
Someone wise said: “Consistent trading starts with consistently eliminating the distracting emotions by reducing position size until winning and losing actually feels boring even with sloppy entries and exits, then all the problems with risk management, trading psychology, fear and greed will instantly go away”. is very well noted.
Thank you very much for your kind reply. This really means a lot to me.
I am wishing you all the best. 
Trading is a skill. You can learn it without having big sizing. Once you got proof you can do it scaling up becomes more important. Until then, honing the skill with small size is vital imo. Enjoy your Sunday!
To stay motivated as a trader, I remind myself that I’m constantly learning from the market. The market is unpredictable, and no one can predict the future, so if I keep losing, it’s not my fault. What’s important is that I’m showing up, observing, and improving my understanding of the market every day.
I also make sure to trade small enough so that even when things don’t go well, I don’t blame myself for losing money or get into financial trouble because of it. By keeping the risk low, I can stay calm and focused, knowing that every experience, good or bad, is part of my growth as a trader.
Dear @Clear_Trade,
Indeed. I was too focus on the profit. Now, I will sharpen my skill with small size position. Hopefully as my skill improved, so as my trading account
Thank you and have a a good day ahead.