Several thoughts pass through your mind per second. You focus on some of them but not all. These processes are automated and if you want to control them then you need to give the appropriate attention to what is happening to you. More specifically, before starting to gamble notice what you’re thinking at that moment. The way you think will affect your emotions and your behavior. For example, if you think you have great chances to win, then you feel happy and you play with more confidence. But if you think that you will lose again, then you feel sad and you play without being concentrated on the game. It is known that your thoughts become actions. So you behave like a winner or a loser.
If you want to control your thoughts then you could write them down as follows: Remember all those times that you won or lost. Recall all your thoughts that prevailed before starting the game, during the game and at the end of it. Write them on a piece of paper and next to them note how you felt. Then ask yourselves if your thoughts were entirely justified, if there was evidence that supported your thoughts or if you were carried away by cognitive errors such as: focusing on the only time you lost a very small amount of money, considering it as disastrous, characterizing yourself “useless” and ignoring all those times you won or focusing on the thought that you lost once, assuming that this will happen every time or that you won because of good luck and not due to personal effort.
If you conclude that your thoughts were not valid, then ask yourselves for alternative thoughts. Based on the above cognitive errors you could have thought for the first one that you have lost a small amount of money only once and that you have earned much more all the other times without considering it as disastrous or characterizing yourselves as useless. You could focus on the positive outcome of the game and characterize yourselves as worthy. For the second cognitive error you could have thought that you only lost once and that you could win the next time. For the third cognitive error you could have thought that you won because you played systematically and because you had a strategy and not due to chance. Based on these alternative thoughts you could ask yourselves how you feel. You will find that your feelings are modified from sadness, frustration, sorrow turning to joy, enthusiasm, satisfaction.
From the above one can realize that if you are aware of your thoughts and feelings, then you can control them and become a winner and not a loser. It is well known that “life is game and you set the rules!”.