The rise is painful.

"Most software engineers are facing an identity crisis that borders on depression."

Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)
What investors often fear isn't just losses, but performing worse than others.

The feeling of relative loss within a profit.
It's not 'losing money hurts,' but 'I'm clearly making money, but my brain compares you to another, better option in hindsight, turning the profit experience into a loss.' The core isn't that the account is actually hurt, but that the frame of reference is out of control: you're no longer comparing against your own plan, risk tolerance, or entry information, but against 'the asset that performed best after the fact.'

Counterfactual regret — the 'what if' mindset
The brain repeatedly generates a thought: "If only I had bought that one back then."
If only I had bought Tuojing Technology back then; if only I had bought all semiconductor equipment ETFs; if only I had switched everything to Dinglong shares; if only I...
This counterfactual thinking — "What if I had...?"
It could have helped with post-trade analysis, but once it gets out of control, it becomes self-punishment: not to improve decision-making, but to prove "I could have made more."

Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)
What bothers you isn't "I didn't make money," but "someone else / another asset / another version of me made more." What we often fear isn't just losses, but performing worse relative to others.

"Didn't make the most"
The original evaluation criteria for a trade should be: Did it align with the plan? Was the risk-reward ratio reasonable? Was the position size appropriate? Were the market assumptions validated?
But now the evaluation criteria become: Did I buy the one with the biggest gain?
This makes any profit feel insufficient, because there's always something in the market that went up more.

Outcome bias over process focus
Using the outcome to reverse-engineer "I should have known." This is dangerous because it creates a false sense of post-hoc certainty: as if the stronger asset was obvious. But real trading happens in uncertainty, not in post-close rankings. In reality, there was a fog of uncertainty at the time.

The most dangerous aspect of this mindset is that it pulls you from a "trading system" into a "chasing system."
It triggers several actions: frequently switching assets, chasing rallies, increasing position size, abandoning previously effective strategies, using higher risk to compensate for psychological "unwillingness to accept." Worse, it gets rewarded a few times in a bull market, making you mistakenly believe "pain is acuity, FOMO is a signal." But when the market changes, it will leave you taking over at the most crowded, expensive, and fragile positions.
Regret aversion can also lead to impulsive decisions or decision paralysis: to avoid future regret, one might chase hot assets or hesitate to make necessary adjustments.

How to adjust
Don't rush to suppress it; instead, break it down and handle it piece by piece.

Label it
Next time this feeling arises, first say:
"What I'm hurting from now isn't the loss; it's not getting the optimal outcome in hindsight. This is an emotional signal, not a trading signal."

Change the comparison object
Don't allow comparison with "the day's strongest asset." Only allow comparison with three things:
Your trading plan, your risk budget, the information you truly had at the time.
During review, ask: "Given the information I had then, was this decision reasonable?" not "Which one made the most in hindsight?"

When fantasizing about switching assets, complete the risk sentence
Don't just write: "Switching to that one would have made more."
Force yourself to add: "Switching to that one, what drawdown, volatility, risk of chasing highs, position sizing, and style-switching risks would I have simultaneously taken on?"
A review with only profit comparison and no risk comparison is a false review.

Set a "satisfactory profit line"
For example, if a trade achieves the planned profit, has good risk control, and execution wasn't distorted, judge it as successful.
Success doesn't equal making the most. Success equals: within a repeatable framework, making the money you should make.
Originally, I thought making about 500k from Changxin's IPO would be enough, and it hasn't even listed yet, but I've already taken 250k in profit. I should feel satisfied and fortunate.

Establish a "missed opportunity budget"
You must allow yourself to miss out. Mature trading isn't about eliminating misses, but about controlling the behavioral distortion caused by missing out. You can allocate a small exploratory position to satisfy observation and trial-and-error, but the core position shouldn't be led by FOMO.

Change the review from "How much less did I make?" to four questions:
"What was my judgment basis at the time?"
"Did I violate my own system?"
"Was that stronger asset truly identifiable, buyable, and suitable for a heavy position at the time?"
"What signal can I define in advance next time, instead of regretting after the fact?"

What you really need to train isn't "not wanting to make more." Wanting to make more is normal. What you need to train is: the desire to make more cannot override risk identification and system discipline.
A calibration phrase you can use repeatedly:
I don't need to catch every strongest rally in the market. What I need to do is, within the scope I can understand, bear, and repeat, make money and survive to the next opportunity.