If you’re like most investors today, your heart drops when you are going through your mail and realize that a statement has come from your investment or retirement account. With stocks down about 40% in the last year, most investors are looking at statements that show a portfolio that has taken a big hit, causing them to wonder how many additional years they might have to work to make up for the massive losses.

A common question that an investor needs to ask in a market downturn is this: “Is now the time to sell?” Sometimes when it feels like the sky is falling, it’s hard to imagine letting our money continue to be exposed to the roller coaster ride that the stock market has been lately. If you sell now, the pain of losing money can stop and you can sleep at night. But you also make the losses that are currently just on paper permanent, you make it impossible to recover those lost dollars unless you’re willing to move back into the market in the future.

The ultimate answer, of course, is different for everyone. But the theme that is consistent for almost all investors is that your emotions are likely to lead you astray when it comes to investing. In a bull market, euphoria is in the air and investors excitedly buy more while prices are high. In a bear market, our emotions create feelings of fear and discomfort, and the emotional investor panics and sells while prices are low. It’s for precisely this reason that the average investor grossly underperforms the major stock indexes year after year.

As always, the best approach you can take as an investor can is to stay disciplined and invest in a manner that is appropriate for your goals-these are different for everyone. If you are 20 years from retirement and wondering whether or not you should keep investing in equity funds in your 401K, this is your chance to buy bigger blocks of shares while prices are low. Dollar cost averaging, or investing similar amounts periodically in the market, allows an investor to take advantage of the opportunity to buy bigger blocks of shares while the market is low and smaller blocks of shares when stock prices are high.

No one can time the market, and it’s impossible to know whether the market will be higher or lower a week or a month from now. Over the past several decades, however, people who have invested in stocks for the long term have been rewarded with returns superior to those of any other asset class.

There is always a temptation to sell when the stock market is struggling, and this has been a difficult year for all investors. The key going forward is to invest your money in a manner that is appropriate for the road ahead, and without looking in your rearview mirror.

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