{"id":650834,"date":"2025-02-21T14:30:46","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T13:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ftmo.com\/?p=650834"},"modified":"2025-02-21T15:23:18","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T14:23:18","slug":"know-your-personality-and-become-a-better-trader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ftmo.com\/en\/know-your-personality-and-become-a-better-trader\/","title":{"rendered":"Know your personality and become a better trader"},"content":{"rendered":"
Do you act like an adult, parent or child when trading? How can knowing the different states of our ego help us achieve better results when trading? Know yourself and become a better trader.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n In the second part of our series discussing the psychology of trading from our Trading Psychology course<\/a>, we’ll look at personality theory as defined by Transactional Analysis. The main goal of today’s part is to see how, through knowledge and understanding of our different states of mind, we can come to a more effective and balanced approach to trading.<\/p>\n After discussing awareness<\/a> and its importance for success in trading in the last section, we will now look at how knowing our own personality can help us in improving our skills. Because as performance coach Michal himself says at the beginning of this lesson, if we want to work on something, we need to know something about it first.<\/p>\n So when we want to know our own personality, we need to be clear about how to actually characterize our personality. And since each of us is our own psychologist and there are really many theories about psychology, we will choose one that can be easily understood by all. It is a system created by Eric Berne, which he calls Transactional Analysis. It is a relatively simple approach with clearly defined terminology that bases its assessment of personality on three distinct personality components (ego states) which are Parent, Adult and Child.<\/p>\n In our lives, we are constantly “switching” between these three states of our ego. When we are in the parental state, we think and behave as our parents, grandparents, uncles, or also as our teachers, for example. Quite unconsciously, we are thus copying the behaviour of people who have had some influence on us in the past.<\/p>\n When we are in the state of a child, we behave and think as we did in childhood, and we also get into this state quite unconsciously. Then, when we behave, think and feel in the context of the present, and do so consciously, we are in the adult state.<\/p>\n A good example is driving a car. We are watching the road, checking our speed and looking around as we approach an intersection with a traffic light. We are fully concentrating here because we are in the adult state. We go through the intersection and one car fails to stop at a red light and almost hits us. Automatically, unconsciously, we switch into parent mode and start yelling and making gestures at the driver. Then a few minutes later we remember the task at work we forgot and start panicking and making the best possible excuse that the boss will believe. We’ve unwittingly switched into the state of a child.<\/p>\n As you can see, we switch between the different ego states quite automatically, which is completely normal, as well as the fact that all these states should be in balance and a certain level of psychological flexibility is needed to do so. At the same time, we can become aware of which ego state we are in because of the way we behave, think and feel.<\/p>\n Similar to driving a car, in trading, our states change rapidly. When we open the platform, we look at the chart, expect the price to get to the predetermined entry price and we are fine. That’s the adult ego state.<\/p>\n When prices get close to the set price, but just before reaching it, it reverses and heads in the desired direction without us having time to execute the trade, we start doubting our entry, thinking about the possible profits we won’t make, and end up opening the position at a much worse level than we originally planned. We are in a child ego state.<\/p>\nKnow yourself<\/h2>\n
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Parent, Adult and Child<\/h2>\n
How our ego reacts to charts<\/h2>\n