As someone who plays for a living, I can say that learning to handle the variance associated with the game did not come overnight. There are certainly some people who are able to disassociate their decisions from the money on Day 1, but this wasn't the case for me. What eventually did the trick was repetition and perspective. Once you've been on 5 or 10 or a couple of dozen significant downswings and come back from it, the loss of money simply doesn't effect you as much. I suspect this is true of many different areas of life. We humans are ready made to adapt to our circumstances. In terms of poker, I know that 5 or 10 sessions are a drop in the bucket when compared to the number of hours I will play in my lifetime. If I am able to consistently make better decisions than my opponents it's not just likely I'll get the money eventually, it's inevitable.