Do Your Goals Conflict with Your Personality?

Since today is the start of the second half of the year, it’s a good time to update your goals. How are you doing so far with the goals you set (or refreshed) at the beginning of the year? Are you making good progress? Are you drifting or stuck? Did you fail to set intelligent goals to begin with?

In my experience, choosing the right goals to begin with is incredibly important if you want to make real progress and enjoy that wonderful feeling of flow. So let me share some of my recent discoveries on how to set goals more consciously.

In the past I used to set goals with a focus on covering the different areas of my life. I’d set goals for my health, work/business, contribution, finances, social life, relationships, personal growth, spiritual path, etc. This worked okay for the most part, and I maintained this approach for many years. I even wrote some articles recommending this approach.

This wasn’t an approach I devised. It was basically something I inherited from various personal development books I read. The approach seemed sound, so I used it by default. Initially I couldn’t see anything wrong with it.

However, as I continued using this approach I often felt myself getting stuck or sidetracked. Sometimes I’d look at my goals, and while they seemed pretty intelligent on the surface, I felt like something was missing. I didn’t feel as motivated as I expected.

I kept tweaking the categories, but something was definitely off.

I experimented by letting go of goals for a while and just going with the flow, but that produced even worse results. I know some people are fans of that style, but it hasn’t worked well for me. I make much better progress — and I’m generally happier and more fulfilled — when I wield greater conscious control over the direction of my life.

Recently I’ve found an approach that works much better, so let me share that with you now.

Instead of thinking of goals as specific accomplishments I want to rack up in each part of my life, I began thinking of goals as a means of self-expression. Some part of my personality wants to be expressed, and a strong goal can help me focus that desire for self-expression. As this expression manifests in reality, the result is a feeling of satisfaction or fulfillment.

For example, some part of me obviously loves to learn, grow, and explore. I love traveling, especially to new places. I love meeting new people and having new experiences. This desire is deeply rooted in me, but it’s not limited to any particular category like health or career development.

Another part of me loves to teach. I find it rewarding to write, speak, and otherwise communicate in ways that help people grow. This desire isn’t limited to one particular area in terms of what I enjoy teaching, so I may help people improve their health, relationships, career path, etc. That’s one reason I write and speak about so many different topics and refuse to limit myself to one specific niche. Furthermore, I don’t constrain this form of self-expression to my career path. I freely share guidance with friends in my personal life just as I do this work professionally. I don’t turn off this aspect of my personality at the end of the workday.

I began thinking of simple labels I could use for these different aspects of my personality where I seem to have a strong need for self-expression. Eventually I came up with the following list:

The Explorer – The part of me that loves to learn, grow, and explore. This part loves traveling, making new friends, and new experiences.The Guide – The part of me that loves to teach and help people grow. This part especially loves to express himself through writing and speaking.The A-Player – The part of me that enjoys being effective, efficient, and successful. He’s competent and confident. He doesn’t need praise or acknowledgement to function well, and negative criticism just bounces off of him. He trusts himself. And he especially likes to connect and work with other A-players.The Member – The part of me that loves to connect with interesting people, to volunteer, to be social, and to belong. This part of me served as President of a non-profit association, was active in Toastmasters, was a member of the Transformational Leadership Council, administered multiple successful discussion forums, and hosted public meet-ups in different cities.The Champion – The part of me that loves to eat healthy, exercise regularly, and pop out of bed well before dawn. This part loves to keep training to become stronger, faster, smarter. He ensures that I have abundant physical and mental energy.The Master – The part of me that loves to be in control. He has a strong need for order, structure, and neatness. He stays calm under pressure and is very good at managing his emotions. This part especially loves D/s play. He welcomes responsibility and likes to be in charge.

This is a work in progress, so the list isn’t complete, but I like what I have so far. For the sake of simplicity, I think I’ll limit this list to a maximum of seven items.

Now instead of setting goals with the classical approach, I use this identity-based approach. I begin by deepening my understanding of the parts of me that crave expression. Then I set goals to give a voice to those desires.

For example, The Explorer will be going to New York City this month. The Guide will be speaking at a number of events this year (and he’s writing this blog post). The Champion is currently starting on Week 5 of the Insanity workout program (which is insanely challenging) — he’s been pretty happy lately since I’m bouncing around with extra energy and a higher than usual metabolism.

The Member has been feeling dissatisfied lately. I had a very social time traveling through Europe for a month, but after returning home to Vegas, I slacked off and let my social life become a bit dry. This feeling of dissatisfaction tells me it’s time for some fresh goals and pursuits to express this aspect of my personality. It would also be nice to express this aspect more evenly instead of yo-yo’ing so much between super social times and slower times.

Some goals are inspired by just one aspect of my personality, while other goals are suggested by multiple aspects. The key here is that every aspect needs at least one current goal to express itself.

Sometimes these personality aspects align somewhat with the categories from the classical coverage approach, but they aren’t so limited. For instance, The Champion often aligns with health goals, but that same personality aspect can push me to raise my standards in my social life as well. And The Explorer can also get involved in setting health goals, such as by suggesting new 30-day trials.

I think the main thing missing from my list above would be the part of me that loves caring, intimacy, cuddling, not harming animals, etc. I haven’t come up with a good label for that part yet, but when I do, I’ll include it as well, and I’ll make sure I have some goals to express that part of my personality more fully. What I have above is just a first draft, so I’ll probably refactor it significantly in the weeks ahead. But even though it’s a bit rough, I wanted to share it now instead of waiting till it’s perfect. An imperfect idea shared immediately is generally superior to a perfect idea delayed indefinitely.

It would be ideal for the personality aspects to exhibit loose coupling and strong coherence. Loose coupling means that there’s little overlap between each aspect. Strong coherence means that they’re very crisply defined without too much fuzziness at the edges. We may not be able to achieve such rigidity with personality aspects that are integrated into our neural nets, but if we can come up with abstractions that adhere to these standards as much as possible, it can assist us greatly in understanding how to set more congruent goals.

Often the mere act of deciding to pay more attention to a particular aspect of self-expression is enough to kick-start it and get some fresh energy moving. For instance, when I decided it was time to open up and start being more social while I’m in Vegas, a friend texted me and said he and some other people I know are in town for a week. We’re having dinner tomorrow. It might sound a bit hokey to say this, but I do believe there are aspects of ourselves that are superconsciously connected somehow. When we energetically open ourselves to new experiences, we may receive compatible invitations and opportunities even when it appears that we haven’t taken action yet. I think that deciding to move forward is a valid form of action itself though, one that the universe seems to acknowledge with positive feedback at times.

Another benefit of using this approach is that you can bring more aspects of your personality to bear on your existing goals and activities. I normally play disc golf with friends each weekend while I’m in town. Disc golf has been a fun hobby of mine for years. To me it’s a time to have fun and joke around, but I normally don’t take the game itself too seriously. Within the context of personality expression, however, I realized that I could likely play better if I really tried to play my very best, which some aspects of my personality would really like to see (A-Player, Champion, Master). So I went out last Saturday and tried to bring my A-game to the experience, while still having fun and joking around as usual. I ended up tying my personal best score on that course, a score that I made years ago and have never matched until now. I actually feel that I have a good shot of beating it, perhaps even this summer. Interestingly, my friends seemed to rise to a greater level of skill as well. They played extremely well and got significantly better than usual scores too. Between the three of us, we scored five 2s (getting the disc in the basket in only 2 throws), which is pretty amazing for our group. Normally we can go a whole game without anyone scoring a 2. The best part is that we all seemed to have a really good time. To me the experience felt richer and more exciting than usual.

In the past I told myself that disc golf was just a recreational activity, something I do on the side for fun. I wasn’t interested in pushing myself to play my best. A sloppy throw here and there wasn’t a big deal to me. But my personality apparently enjoys it when I try to do my best anyway. Even a strictly recreational/fun activity can be made richer and more satisfying by inviting more of myself into the experience.

Consider how you can apply this idea to some activity in your own life. How can you inject more of your personality into your work, play, relationships, etc?

One advantage to this approach is that you won’t ignore significant aspects of your personality, which is easy to do with the classical coverage-based approach.

A problem I had in the past was not paying enough attention to my need for exploration and fresh experiences. This part was especially squashed when I was broke, and it also felt caged when I was married. Four years ago I had never been outside the USA. Now my passport is halfway filled up with stamps. This type of change is very fulfilling.

In the past I would still set some travel goals, but they were usually my lowest priority goals. Career and contribution and relationships were always more important, and travel was just an optional tack-on entertainment category, often listed as “Travel/Fun.”

As I began pushing myself to do more traveling, I realized it wasn’t a diversion or an escape for me. It was an immersive growth experience, and I found it deeply satisfying most of the time. This helped me to stop treating this category of goals as something optional and recreational. I realized that this is an important aspect of my personality that needs to be expressed. Otherwise I just don’t feel like I’m really being me. Now I’m finally treating this aspect of my personality with a high degree of respect, at least on the same footing as any other types of goals.

I think you’ll find it immensely satisfying when you finally start expressing a part of your personality that’s previously been caged or squashed. That’s definitely been the case for me.

It’s easy to verbally acknowledge an aspect of your personality that you recognize. It takes little effort to say, “I like to travel too.” But it’s another thing to set specific goals in this area (travel to where? when are you leaving?) and to begin working on these goals seriously, as if your life depended on it. I’d say you’re not really serious till your flight is booked.

Also note that your strongest goals will satisfy multiple aspects of your personality. Last year I decided to do more public speaking, and this was an easy goal to accomplish because it aligns so well with aspects of my personality that desire expression. The Explorer gets to travel. The Guide gets to teach. The Member gets to connect with new people. The A-Player gets to thoroughly prepare. The Champion enjoys the challenge. And The Master loves to direct the audience to stretch themselves (with their permission of course).

If you were to come up with a similar list of personality aspects for yourself, what would you include? I encourage you to brainstorm a first stab at such a list right now. How well do you know yourself?

Note that you don’t need to list every little piece of your personality. Try to only list the strongest and most pervasive aspects, the ones that keep trying to express themselves again and again — and when they aren’t being expressed, you feel trapped, stuck, or depressed.

Do your best to generalize these aspects as much as possible. For instance, if you like coffee and you need to drink it every day, is it because you like to indulge in the sensual experience of it? Do you do it for social reasons? Do you crave the stimulation of the caffeine? Any or all of these could be aspects of your personality looking for expression.

Notice what you catch yourself doing in your spare moments. What aspects of your personality might you be trying to express?

When you really take ownership of your personality… when you can look at your list and say, “Yup, that’s me!” then I think you’ll find it much easier to claim full ownership of the goals that arise from this approach. You’ll finally be setting goals that are truly you — not your parents’ goals for you, not society’s goals for you, and not merely some marketing-implanted desire for the latest iStuff.

A major benefit to this approach is that it will help you set more holistic, intelligently integrated goals. You’ll develop a better understanding of which goals are wise choices for you, and which aren’t.

I can see that public speaking is a great fit for my personality. That’s probably why I love it so much. I currently have engagements booked through March of next year, and I’m always looking for more. Speaking-related goals are very congruent, and so I find them fairly easy to achieve. Working on these goals is a labor of love.

On the other hand, developing new products is much more challenging for me. I can eventually accomplish such goals, but they take a lot longer, and my progress is slower. Such goals satisfy some aspects of my personality like The A-Player and The Guide, but they don’t do much to satisfy other aspects like The Explorer and The Member. This awareness suggests that I could develop products faster if I could align the process with more aspects of my personality. For instance, one thing that helps is working with other people on a product instead of working solo. I’m currently working with an audio engineer on the new Subjective Reality audio program, and this is indeed helping to move things along since we can collaborate on some aspects of the project.

I’ll cover this personality-based approach to goal setting in more detail in the upcoming Subjective Reality program since this ties in with your avatar’s identity and the story you create with your avatar, but I wanted to share the rough version of this now in the hopes that you’ll find it worthy of some experimentation.

If you try this approach, please let me know what you come up with for the list of your personality aspects. And especially let me know if you find this approach helpful in setting new goals that you otherwise might not have considered.

The Guide is now satisfied.

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Rethink Productivity: How to Use Your Personality to Reach Your Goals

Dear Kirsten,

Reading through your descriptions, I think your guess is spot on. I’m a yoga teacher, and the best hours of my day are the ones I spend helping my students to open up and relax. Over the summer I had the idea to teach at one of the local lakes, first on the shore and then out in the water on paddle boards. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s a whole new dimension when you know you won’t hurt yourself if you fall! Plus you put new stresses on your muscles and gain additional strength… but that’s not really what I’m writing about, is it?

My goals… now that it’s getting cooler I can’t do the classes on the lake anymore, but they were a huge hit. I want to offer them again next summer, along with more traditional ground based classes. Longer term, it would be amazing to have a building on the lake shore where I could offer classes year round. Imagine a wall of windows overlooking the water, such a perfect place to find peace…

My commitments, well, I have my two daughters to provide for. Their father moved overseas and hasn’t seen them in years. My parents need help around the house occasionally, and I teach a yoga class at one of the homeless shelters downtown. Most of my income comes from teaching yoga and dance at various studios around town, which mostly covers the bills. I was able to pay off the last of my credit card debt by offering the water yoga classes, but that income stream is gone until next year.

So I guess my goal is to open my own yoga studio on the lake without letting down the people who depend on me. Can my personality type help me do that?

Signed,

G

Dear G,

In a word, yes.

You are sitting on top of an amazing resource, thanks to your personality. As a primary Environmental, you have a giant network of people for whom you’ve given your time and energy, and they’re just waiting for you to tell them what they can do to help you in return. Think about it – when you teach classes, you connect with your students, right? You get to know them, their strengths and weaknesses, and you see them regularly. I’ll bet a lot of them helped to make your water yoga sessions such a success – they registered for them, told their friends about them, and generally helped spread the word. Now think of what you could do if you approached that network with the end goal of building your yoga studio on the lake. You’ve touched hundreds of lives, G! And your envisioned studio is hardly selfish – it’s a foundation from which you can touch hundreds more!

So let your network help you build this studio. Tell people about your idea. Listen to what they have to say. Perhaps bring together a few groups for brainstorming about how you might get from where you are to where you want to go. When the web designer in your Wednesday morning class offers to put up a quick site for you, say yes! When the wife of an architect convinces her husband to draw up some blueprints, thank them both! I am a firm believer that the universe responds when we commit – but also that we make our own luck by creating a life that gives the universe something to work with.

Now, let’s address your secondary Fantastical type. I’m guessing that is where your water yoga idea might have originated. The Fantastical can pull together concepts that would never be considered by other types, and the results can be breathtaking. Now, the Fantastical also has some issues with organization, and your Environmental type isn’t going to help much when it comes to marshaling all the resources that your network can command. If you can’t handle the logistics of bringing your vision into reality, all the goodwill you’ve built up will disappear pretty quickly. You have two options to avoid that fate.

1) Find someone in your network who can handle the details. You’ll want this person to be reasonably close to you, and someone that you trust, because they’re going to be handling communications, money, even offers of supplies and labor. You may want to bring this person on as a partner in your business, because they’ll deserve the recognition. This person is likely to be Structural, or possibly Analytical.

2) Get a giant whiteboard or chalkboard. Spend some time with a small group thinking through the steps you’ll need to take to get to your goal, and then divide up the board in such a way that you can keep track of both the steps and the people who have offered to help with them. This board will need to become an integral part of your life, because only by keeping it visible, checking it daily, and updating it regularly will you be able to stay on top of all the moving pieces and direct the efforts of others on your behalf.

Reaching your goal will take a lot of work – that’s true for any goal worth achieving. But tell me, what sounds easier to you: finding, screening and hiring all the contractors you’ll need and trying to get a bank loan to finance the studio, or reaching out to your network to see what they can provide and letting some of the good you’ve put out into the world come back to help you achieve your studio?

With Love,

Kirsten

Now it’s your turn – how can you use your personality to smooth your path to your goals?

Have a productivity problem? Tell Kirsten all about it and get a solution!

Featured photo credit:  soccer ball via Shutterstock

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The personality of sperm donors

The biggest ever study on the personality of sperm donors has just been published.

Each was asked to fill out the Temperament and Character Inventory personality scale, also known as the TCI, and the results were compared to a similar group of men who hadn’t whacked off into a plastic tube for the benefit of society.

So who donates sperm?

With regard to personality, we found significant differences on the temperament dimension of harm avoidance between the sperm donors and the comparison group, with lower means for sperm donors. This indicates that the sperm donors described themselves as being less worried, uncertain, shy and less subject to fatigue

Furthermore, we also found significant differences on the character dimensions, where the sperm donors showed higher means on self-directedness. This indicates that they perceived themselves as more autonomous individuals, with a capacity for responsibility, as behaving in a more goal-directed manner, and to be more resourceful and self-acceptant than the comparison group.

The sperm donors also showed significantly higher means on cooperativeness. This means that they described themselves as being more integrated with society and having a greater capacity for identification with and acceptance of other people than the comparison group.

The personality dimensions from the Temperament and Character Inventory have been found to be among the most heavily influenced by genetics, so knowing that your average sperm donor is a generally nice chap is very useful information.

I suspect, however, that ‘not easily fatigued’ may be a selection bias due to the demands of the job.

Link to paywalled study. No chance of a donation then?

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Personality profile of a magical being

A 1993 study on the personality of Dungeons and Dragons players finds kinda what you’d expect.

The personality of fantasy game players

British Journal of Psychology
Volume 84, Issue 4, pages 505–509, November 1993

Neil A. Douse, I. C. McManus

Players of a fantasy Play-By-Mail game were compared with matched controls on personality measures of decision-making style, sex-role, extraversion, neuroticism, empathy, leisure interests and personality type. Most players were male. On the Bem Sex-Role Inventory the players were less feminine and less androgynous than controls. They were more introverted, showed lower scores on the scale of empathic concern, and were more likely to describe themselves as ‘scientific’, and to include ‘playing with computers’ and ‘reading’ amongst their leisure interests than controls.

Obviously, times have changed since 1993 and now that RPGs are hip I’m sure that the personality profile of gamers is completely different. And anyone that says different will taste the cold steel of my vorpal sword. No saving throw.

Link to study abstract.

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Know your Personality Type Before before Tweaking Your Life

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Wow Wee Mr. Personality Multi Personality Robot

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Expressive Personality - Develop Personal Magnetism Using Nlp and Hypnosis Mp3 Audio Program

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Expressive Personality 2 - Develop Personal Magnetism Using Nlp and Hypnosis Mp3 Audio Program

Expressive Personality 2 - Develop Personal Magnetism Using Nlp and Hypnosis Mp3 Audio Program by Michael J. Emery, M.A., C.Ht., M.NLP - Personal Development Coach

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Personal Development - Enhance Impressive Personality

If you want to develop a vibrant personality, is an important aspect of attractiveness and the most important would be quality called inner charisma or charm. Charm is the personality that comes from inside. This is usually known as 'Personal Attractiveness' and what the film makers and big companies look for is personal magnetism or internal charm. This is not a defined property, but is much more important than physical attractiveness. But when both personalities combined mixture is irresistible.

Charm can be developed into individual, like how you learn everything. Anyway, it requires a lot of self-discipline and constant study. Some of the features we can take people of great kindness, interest in people, courtesy, kindness towards all, confidence and vitality. There are a few important requirement needed to develop an impressive attitude, such as maintaining good health, kind for all, a good character, honesty in all respects, not selfish, obedient to the principles and ideals that beauty of body and mind, truth, religious, loyal and good habits. Involvement those qualities in yourself will help you develop an impressive personality.

Personality is the psychological behavior that makes the way of life and is operated by the way we interrelate with people around us and the environment relevant to them. We regularly hear people say 'he has a hot-tempered personality' or 'he has a cool personality. "Both figures describe a person's communication with people surrounding and power handling different situations. Personality for any normal person has decided on three major factors, which are the situations, one person handles, inheritance of genes and environment.

So, discuss inheritance of genes is that the genes we inherit from our parents and this play a major part to act personality development. The environment is also key that the personality developed by the society and living styles. The third major issue for its development is the situations we deal with. Regardless of the additional two factors for its development, how we deal with situations in a developed or a well-educated way matters a lot.

Everyone would agree with the point that keeping fit is very most important element of having an impressive personality. Staying fit also has several rewards. There are several ways to keep fit and if you have a gym close by your house, you just plan time. You can also sign up a gym or can also contact the trainer for internal personal lessons. An internal personal training is normally conducted by people who cannot manage his daily schedule for exercise and fitness gym or physical tutoring instructor. The alternative option is that you go to a dance class for staying fit and in shape. Staying in shape will also be a part of personal development.

Kin Kwan offers personal coaching and consulting to individuals interested in personal development who want deep and lasting change. I invite you to claim your free instant access to the ebook on how to build the successful and prosperous life you dream of within the next 30 days.

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kin_Kwan

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Personality Development

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Wow Wee Mr. Personality Multi Personality Robot

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