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TRADING PSYCHOLOGY
Metaphors For Trading
by Ruth Barrons Roosevelt
The metaphors we use in our lives can be powerful emotional symbols, and how we view the market is reflected in those metaphors. Change those metaphors and develop a more successful attitude. Here's how.
The creation of metaphors that empower is one more tool you can use to enhance your trading. The metaphors you use regarding your trading have a direct impact on your approach to trading and consequently on your profitability.
Usually, we don't choose metaphors consciously, and yet they're in the back of our minds guiding our interpretation of what's happening and our expectations of what will occur. Sometimes they support us and sometimes they don't. A metaphor is a comparison of one thing to another. Life's a bowl of cherries, say some. Life's the pits, say others. Life's a bitch and then you die. It's a jungle out there. Life's a ball! A picnic. A contest. A game.
The Greek myth of Sisyphus tells the story of an extended life metaphor. Sisyphus was condemned to push a giant rock up a mountain in Hades and watch it roll down, only to push it back up again, and to do this for all eternity. Try that as a metaphor for your life or your trading and notice how you feel. Now try saying that life or your trading is a sacred gift. And notice what that feels like.
Metaphors are symbols, and as such carry mythic power. They liken one thing to another and in so doing cause us to assume ? quite unconsciously ? that what is true for one part of the comparison is also true for the other. If we were to address this consciously, however, we would most likely deny it.
A metaphor can bring instant beneficial power and can also bring nagging and persistent limitation. A limiting metaphor can be toxic to your life or trading, while an enabling metaphor can work wonders. Metaphors are subtle, and as such, they can have a profound effect upon how we view ourselves, our trading, our work and our relationships with others.
A metaphor is a symbolic representation of a belief, and like a belief, it's usually selected without conscious awareness. Sometimes, a metaphor is simply part of the culture in which we live. It may or may not support us, so it's important to consciously review and choose and use only metaphors that can help us. These metaphors will be your nurturing guides behind the scenes.
Think about the metaphors you use to describe living in general. Do you have one prevailing reference, a primary or dominant metaphor for life? Or do you have many? If so, are they all pretty much the same? These metaphors could be organizing your life without your conscious knowledge. Ask yourself, "Do these thoughts support me?" If not, consciously choose others.
WARFARE AND TRADING
Some common metaphors with which traders describe and explain trading use sports and warfare. In these metaphors, trading is perceived as a contest between two sides. One side wins. One side loses.
Combat metaphors are rife. How many times have you read or heard traders referring to trading as a battle? If thinking of trading as combat enables you to trade more effectively, all well and good. But warfare demands that you bring up all of your resources. It's an all-or-nothing affair, one that involves ambush, pillage, rape, wounding, life and death, victory and defeat. A trader goes out each day to do battle with the market. He is at war with the market. No wonder he or she is exhausted at the end of a trading day or week!
Exhaustion is the least of the difficulties. Thinking of trading as warfare could cause you to overtrade or undertrade. Attack and retreat. Such a metaphor could cause you to lose money trading.
If you are at war, who is the enemy? Are you at war with other traders? Are you fighting the market? Is the enemy yourself, or a faceless, nameless one?
If you are at war with the market, the contest is clearly unequal. The market is bigger than you are. It has more battle intelligence in the sense of information and certainly more forces. No matter how big a trader you are, you're puny compared to the market. It's the same if the other traders are the enemy. You against all the other traders? It's an unequal contest.
Some market gurus urge the trader to take a samurai warrior's approach to trading. That's great, but it still presupposes that trading is war. In one article I read, the author urged the trader to approach trading in the same way that the samurai released his fears before a battle, trading in an egoless state, having made peace with a future outcome ? because you are willing to die. Willing to die? Isn't that conceding the possibility of total wipeout? How many times have you said to yourself, "I got killed in the market"? Or "If I do that, I'll get killed"?
Metaphors are subtle. Even if the conscious mind can interpret them beyond the literal, the unconscious interprets whatever you say literally. When you say you'll get killed in the market, or even that you're willing to die, what does your unconscious think? No wonder so many traders hesitate before entering the market and jump out of trades well before they should!
Metaphors are symbols, and as such carry mythic power. They liken one thing to another and in so doing cause us to assume ? quite unconsciously ? that what is true for one part of the comparison is also true for the other. If we were to address this consciously, however, we would most likely deny it.
Ruth Roosevelt is the director of the Wall Street Hypnosis Center, 165 William Street, New York, NY 10038, 212 349-3989.Excerpted from an article originally published in the February 1998 issue of Technical Analysis of STOCKS & COMMODITIES magazine. All rights reserved. © Copyright 1998, Technical Analysis, Inc.