The old psychology was all about solving problems, treating emotional dysfunctions, and facing conflicts. The psychologist was a “shrink”: someone who helped you boil your woes down to resolvable core issues.

The new psychology is all about expanding, not shrinking.  It emphasizes understanding and building on strengths. It seeks to maximize positive experience. The psychologist increasingly is one who helps you bridge the real and ideal and achieve your aims in life.

This new positive psychology is an outgrowth of significant research. A growing body of work details how people can become happier, more productive, more creative, and more fulfilled in their relationships.  Surprisingly few of us are aware of this treasure trove, however, and even fewer make active use of its findings. As a result, we manage our problems, but all too rarely optimize our lives.

Becoming More Of Who We Already Are

As a psychologist, my primary work is with portfolio managers and traders in financial markets. Participation in financial markets, it turns out, is a microcosm of life itself. It concentrates the challenges each of us faces in dealing with risk, uncertainty, and the demands of performance. Successful investment and trading requires not just mastery of markets, but self-mastery.

I am deeply honored to begin this blog with Forbes. For those interested in following, I propose a paradigm shift in keeping with the new psychology.  Consider the possibility that, in some manner and to some degree, you already are the person you hope to become. There are moments–maybe ongoing periods of time–when you are aligned with your strengths, immersed in the actions that bring you fulfillment. The goal should not be to change you, but to help you more consistently become the person you already are at your best.

Each blog post going forward will focus on a specific practice, grounded in research, that can build on the best of you. The aim is to make you a better decision maker and idea generator in markets, but also to help you generate the directions and decisions that will move your life forward. “Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today,” Ayn Rand once observed. My deepest hope is that this blog becomes one tool in the fight for your future.

Brett N. Steenbarger, Ph.D.

http://www.traderfeed.blogspot.com