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Your Personality

Your Personality

“Have you ever wondered why you instinctively do things?

Have you ever asked yourself why certain types of people, tasks and situations naturally appealed to you more than other people, tasks, and situations do?

What makes you think and feel the way you do?”

The answer is your personality. Every moment of every day, your personality influences the way you interact with the world. Your personality is what makes you stand out from the people. It reflects your general pattern of interacting with individuals and going about tasks - whether you are withdrawn or outgoing, excitable or calm, kind or stern, active or passive. It influences, not only your attitudes, beliefs, and interests, but also your perception of the world, your stress reactions, and the coping mechanisms that help you deal with life. It also determines the way you notice, process, and remember information.

Your Unique Way of Thinking

To understand why you think the way you do, try the following task:

Say the first word that comes into your mind when you read the word “Blue”.

When given this task, some people will name a word from nature (sky, water, whale or moon). Some people will name a feeling (sad, cold, drunk). Other people will name something completely unexpected (table, cow). You might think that whatever words you would choose depends on your current mood or circumstances, and that this isn't a very well-rounded test of personality. And of course it isn't. Psychological research shows, however, that if you asked the same question in a few years from now, you are likely to repeat the exact same word again.

Does this mean you have a super memory? Well, perhaps it does. Most likely, though, the phenomenon is simply related to the unique brain pattern that you have been setting up since you were a child. Imagine that there are pathways in your brain, like hiking paths cut through a forest. In a forest, the way the trees and vegetation grow makes it that certain paths are easier and more preferable to use than others. The more you use those paths, the more worn-in, they become. After several years of use, your footprints begin to leave a mark.

This is how it works with your brains preferred information pathways. The amount of information you have in your head might change over time, but the way you collect, organise, utilise, and react to the information is not likely to change. In fact, by the age of 13 your personality and preferred thinking patterns begin to crystallise.

A few small changes occur as you gather experience with the world, but by the age of 30 your personality and thought patterns are likely to remain stable throughout your lifespan. That is, we may alter our appearances, start new hobbies, change our circles of friends, or switch our political opinions, but our personalities and preferred ways of processing information are likely to remain pretty much the same.

When interacting with the world, your brain prefers the paths it knows.

Knowing Your Personality

Since your personality affects all areas of your life, knowing your personality and your personality borders is important. And once you begin to understand your behavioural tendencies, your preferred information pathways, why you do the things you do, and in what situations you feel most comfortable, you can begin to use the uniqueness of your personality at its full potential. More, you will become better and better at recognizing which types of people and situations fit you best.

Researchers have found that when life's challenges and demands force a person to play a role that doesn't suit his or her personality that person's immune system, enthusiasm, and motivation, wear down significantly over time. Such situations cause us to view our life from a negative perspective, but also to feel tired, to think less clearly, and to feel less satisfied in all other aspects of life.

When, for example, a person who is naturally, an “Extrovert” is asked to do a job where he or she works in solitude for the majority of the day, for several weeks in a row, that person's productivity and enthusiasm towards life will decrease.

On the other hand, when a person who is naturally an “Introvert” is asked to continually think out loud, direct groups and have limited quiet time for many weeks in a row, his or her ability to function and happiness will also drastically decrease. This affects not only job performance, but also carries over to all areas of life. For this reason, in any of life's tasks-whether they are our job tasks, daily activities, or interactions with friends or partners - it is important that we seek out opportunities that fit our natural strengths, predispositions, and preferred brain pathways.

Most people will at some point feel their work and life are out of balance, and this in turn can create unwanted consequences, perhaps a setback requires new thinking and different course of action.

We all face challenges, actual and perceived in life, and in business, and often there is an urgent need to accelerate results or improve performance to create more organised and communicative individuals and teams. Maybe there are pressing challenges, goals or opportunities ahead or perhaps uncertainty or a lack of clarity in a situation and choices need to be made.

Maybe your success has become problematic in its difficult to see the next level. In these areas and many others Coaching can be applied with great success, where you know extra support and expertise could make a significant difference to how you feel and what you do.

There are many reasons why people seek Executive and Personal Coaching, however the commonality is the need for change.

Coaching is proliferating, because it is desperately needed. But as it’s usually done, it can be limited, it can lack integrity, precision and the infrastructure of a “Creative Thinking Environment.”

Executive Masterclass Coaching and Coach Training Programmes are designed to create that environment.