Looking for oneself does not have to be a difficult journey
I am a practitioner in the Striving Styles Personality System. This is a neuro-psychological approach to understanding your brain and ergo your personality. There are those out there that scoff at such practices but their very closed-mindedness only shows that they are stuck. Why wouldn’t anyone want to know their brain, their tendencies and how it works? This is just consciousness.
Being a leader in consciousness is a challenge. Bearing the gap without judging others is difficult and causes one to seek out like minded people so that our needs get met too. Interestingly enough, I have found, on average, that it is men who scoff at the knowledge more quickly than women. But then again, men in general don’t like going into their emotions, so I can’t say I’m surprised. But what baffles me, is if you have a tool that can let you really understand how you tick, why would you not want to have full understanding of that?
Sometimes life feels stormy and confusing, but knowing yourself can clear the skies
But perhaps I digress, perhaps I assume most people do want to be the best that they can be and others just want to go along on automatic pilot. Why? Because it is easier. To make changes in behaviours that are not serving us is difficult. It takes energy and one has to be mindful and present. We are not encouraged to be this way in our world. In fact marketers would prefer that we don’t think at all. That we just follow their influence “buy this, you want this, look this way, act this way … and you’ll be happy” – ya right. And likely in debt too.
You see, depending on what your predominant personality is and its associated predominant need, you will behave in certain ways to get that need met. The most human automatic pilot way to react is from our self-protective behaviour. This is a natural response to a perceived threat. It serves one purpose, to preserve and protect us. It isolates us and takes us nowhere. There is no risk. It serves the needs of the person protecting themselves and that is it. It does not contribute to a relationship because it does not encourage dialogue.
And you won't feel so much like you are walking alone
Now if you were conscious enough to know how you tick, then you would be able to see yourself starting to respond with self-protective behaviours and you could make a choice to instead behave with self-actualizing behaviours. When we self-actualize we perceive the situation as a challenge instead of a threat. It starts with the recognition of the legitimacy of the other person’s position and copes with reality – the way things are not the way we wish them to be. It takes the other person into consideration. It is a problem solving response which tries to meet the needs of the other person as well. It is risk taking.
So if you had the choice, to know your brain and to optimize on the best ability to relate to another, why wouldn’t you want to? That is what baffles me.
Confident as a cat!