First Post/Need a bit of advice

Hey everybody! This is my first post and I am excited to be a part of the forums!

Just to give you some background: I am a 21 year old junior in college who has been playing poker on and off for about 5 or 6 years. In the last three years I have made several stabs at online poker only to walk away in frustration. Over the last few months I have a developed a reinvigorated interest in the game and have been getting back into reading poker books and watching strategy videos. I deposited $90 into Bovada and have been playing the micro stakes.

I have been extremely happy with the way I've been playing up recently. I was playing fairly tight, and staying positive almost every session. I was feeling really good.

Unfortunately, things have gone down hill fast. I crashed and burned all the way back down to my initial deposit before falling negative. I know it's me sucking and not just a bad beat.

I know this is a constant struggle in the poker world, I guess I'm just in need of some motivation... only one of my friends plays poker so I don't have many people to talk about the game with. I try to stay positive and be "decision oriented" instead of "result oriented", but its very difficult for me. I start to feel like shit about my overall skill level. The hardest part is that I am pretty aware of all of the important aspect of poker: position, hole card strength, bet sizing, bluffing, etc... but can't seem to improve myself. I feel like I desperately need a coach to help me find the holes in my game. Are poker trackers worth it in Bovada? I know they can't keep track of other opponents due to the anonymous nature of the site, but would it still be able to analyze my own game so I can find my weaknesses? If so, what poker tracker would be the best for the sole purpose of self-analysis?

So other than grinding it out what do you guys recommend? I know I should definitely start posting hand histories for hands I lose, and now that I'm apart of the forum it's definitely something on my list.
I feel like I need a better mindset in general for poker as well. Any pieces of advice for keeping my psyche in check would be fantastic! Sorry if this is a silly/super general post... I know I just need to "keep on", but anything will help!

One more thing:
I saw a post saying these books were good... "The Poker Mindset: Essential Attitudes for Poker Success" by Matthew Hilger and Jared Tendler's book: "The Mental Game of Poker"
any other suggestions for the mental sides of poker or books for the intermediate poker player?

Bovada lets you import your hand histories after a few days. I would diligently review them. It's especially valuable because you get the see the hole cards of everybody at the table, not just your own and the villains. Take your notes. Share and debate your observations with other players you know.

Do this for thousands of hands, and eventually you'll develop a feel for how players play hands of all variant strengths from early, middle, late positions. Top pair medium kicker, sets, top pair weak kicker, gutshot draws, flush draws, air hands like middle pair, backdoor draws, overcards, etc. What kind of bet sizes can they call? Do you start to notice correlations in bet sizing and their hand strength.

This in the long term, along with developing your reads, also helps you internalize fold equity - you put them on a hand range, and if you think you can push them off - choosing the right bet size is key.

It's the single most useful thing you can do. You can analyze a hundred different facets of poker if you put the time in it.

Hands you folded and you're wondering whether you made the right laydown, see if he was bluffing. When you were bluffed out, were their commonalities in those hands? Were you in a positional disadvantage or advantage, what kind of boards were they, did you call the flop or turn just hoping he would shut down or were you confident in having the best hand and committed to calling down?

When you c-bet bluff with a missed AK, what kinds of boards did your c-bets generate the most folds? What boards did they almost never work? What kind of hands were they folding or calling with, and continuing on the turn with? Optimizing your c-bet game alone will save you from burning money.

As an aside, on Bovada, you can afford to play tighter, unlike sites with screennames where if you're a huge nit who only raises the big pocket pairs people figure it out and stop giving you action. Bovada is a site specifically designed for you to extract max value with your monster hands without having to balance your range. You don't need for the rest of the table to see you being aggressive preflop with 109s to keep getting action.

Evaluate your preflop play - did you call raises with speculative hands trying to hit the flop hard? Did you call the flop in a multiway flop with a weak pair when you know you're behind? Are you getting into reverse-implied odds spots, like drawing with a 9 high flush in a multiway pot where someone likely has the king-high or nut flush draw? Did you overplay bottom two pair on the turn? I bet that a lot of your lost buy-ins started with one small preflop mistake that compounded itself as the hand progressed.

These are leaks you can get rid of without having to invest in poker software.

I will tell you one thing, books can be a massive help but you've landed on a goldmine at cardschat, I was terrible when I first signed up here yet low and behold i'm here 7/8 months later and my game has come on leaps and bounds, just keep studying, post hands that you've struggled with, forumers are always looking to help and improve each others games at no charge lol. Good luck my friend. Also just to add, the best tip I could give you is don't even worry about your results, focus on making the best decision you can in every given situation and the results will naturally come.

Wow your right about stumbling upon a gold mine of information! You guys are great!

Cactus Cat- you've given me a lot to think about! Much appreciated. I was unaware of that feature of Bovada so I will definitely look into that.
I'm sure my game will improve now that I have found a proper poker community to chat with. Thank you!

Also thank you greekdude for your positive advice! I needed to hear that

I've found people make less and less mistakes pre now and more postflop!

Postflop is where the money is!