Here is a really good resource for psychology related to poker. http://www.brettsteenbarger.com/articles.htm

Check out link 2, "A personality questionnaire for traders". I think the quiz is at least worth thinking about. Summary is that

- We experience positive and negative emotions associated with poker
- It's very hard to excel at anything if the negative emotions dominate
- High degree of positive emotions lead to immersion in one's subject. See aejones' "The Obsession" article for a prime example.
- Happiness and well being are a result of 1) autonomous goals 2) goals that we intrinsically value 3)feeling of competence 4) valuing relationships more than money and material things

I think points 1-2 is the main reason many of us prefer self-directed endeavors like poker. It's pretty soul crushing even achieving goals that others set for us. And even reaching goals we set aren't satisfying unless the accomplishment is meaningful. I've had months where I reach some monetary goal by grinding a ton, but I don't think it made me any happier. Where as reaching modest goal like exercising regularly has improved the quality of my life. This may sound contradictory to my last post where I stated 50k hand goal, however I don't think this is the case. I'm slowly rediscovering my enjoyment for poker. Immersion and enjoyment should lead to much success. I have to get out of the mindset that poker is easy money and a trivial job. This is effecting my whole belief system, and I'll go more into that subject in a future post.