Another technique I've found helpful for a position that is only a slight loser is to write a near-month covered call.
Hi Tech
Writing covered calls is one of the more conservative and most rewarding of trading vehicles in the markets, and really why options were developed to begin with.
In fact, I always find it fascinating that most brokers, financial sites (market letters) - or message boards for that matter - rarely talk about this as a way to generate a consistent income on a longer term holding as it's really hard to beat the consistency and protection one gets from utilizing such a strategy - especially with stocks that have low volatility.
As far as your other items in which you refer to in this post - stock picking is always a challenge whether you're a technician or a fundamentalist.
But the real challenge in all of this is understanding that this is a battle between you and the market. You can be right about the direction of a price move, but either you're timing maybe wrong OR there just isn't enough traders out there that agree with your observations.
And, of course, we all have this inherent need to be right about the things we say and do in life - and why it's so hard to sell something in which was initially to be a successful venture .
So though it's hard to sell a loser when the time comes around to do so, it's also important to remember that if you do sell with a small loss you will be able to come back again at a later date...something of which is hard to do if you have nothing to come back with when another opportunity presents itself later on.
In a word it's called "discipline" and the ability to know that you're only as good as your last trade.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Fib
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Having the losers out of sight and out of mind really reduced the stress.
Not to say that I would recommend doing this in a haphazard way. Always have a stop when you open a trade, whether hard or mental. Then move the stop to break-even as soon as you have a decent gain, to prevent a winner from becoming a loser. Never risk too much on one trade, etc., etc.
Another technique I've found helpful for a position that is only a slight loser is to write a near-month covered call. That way I have a little downside protection and can turn a loser into a winner without taking the excess risk of doubling up. Of course one still has to be disciplined enough to liquidate the combined position if the loss starts accelerating.
I still have a lot of obstacles to overcome in my trading. For some reason, I find it much easier to be disciplined with individual stocks compared with indices. The constant chop and noise in the indices always seems to shake me out at the wrong time. 
Anyway, just thought I'd share this in case it might be helpful to others like myself who are still struggling with trading discipline. Sorry if this stuff is too basic for the pros here.
TechSkeptic
