developing courage in a speculative market

dear HC & dear Abbey

i decided to start this thread (hopefully it is the right forum) & bear all

i am not very comfortable in the current market

formerly, my modus operandi was to mostly buy into stocks that had established exploration targets, established deposits from historical drilling, etc. i would put larger money into these, say $5K to $10k investments, sometimes more, up to $20K

on speculative speccies, with a wiff, i might invest $1k or $2k, even just $500

currently, the market for mineral deposits is dead. companies with excellent but 2nd tier deposits, eg, ELM, PEK, AKM, etc, are unwanted

now the gains are to be made by getting in early into 'sniff speccies', e.g. RXL, ICG, AZY, etc.

i originally put $2K into RXL at 2.2 cents but got traded out at 2.5 cents, after trading twice

i originally put $3K into AZY heads & oppies but chickened out with the heads at the beginning, then bought again, for small profit after small loss

personally, i am not a gambler

worse, i bought a house last year, have $40K left on the mortgage, about $20K in stock and $30K in trading money, so i became very conservative; more chicken

i sold most of my 'investments' recently (eg. ELM) to focus on short term trading. but still holding some SVM and GTE as 'investments' and bought some AKA

so my question for the forum is:

1. how to increase courage?

2. how to increase decisiveness?

thanks