Attract Your Perfect Relationship

Posts Tagged ‘personality style’

Self-Awareness: How Do You Communicate?

How do you rate yourself as a communicator?

Are you effective, powerful and attractive or is there room for improvement?

The questions below are intended to make you think about how you communicate, what you communicate and how well you appear to be understood and where some improvement is required! As you read them through, pay attention to those scenarios that seem to leap out from the page. Notice how your body reacts and what thoughts you generate.

First of all, take a quick trip down memory lane to your schooldays.

• Were you ever asked to read out loud or perform to the class?
• Was it torture or did you enjoy it or was it somewhere in between?
• Did the teacher ever praise you or tell you off in front of the class?

Just notice whether this brings back unpleasant or pleasant feelings and then let them go and come back to the present.

Have you ever had a conversation where you felt that you were really in tune with the other person and they were in tune with you?

• What were they doing?
• What were you doing?

Have you ever had times when you felt as if you were having a big communication clash with someone?

• What is it that they said or did that didn’t work for you?
• What might you have been doing differently from them?

Are people rapt when you are talking or do you notice their attention wandering?

Do you find yourself regularly being asked to explain what you mean?

Do people respond to you in a way that leads you to believe they haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about? And more to the point, are you noticing this?

Do you sometimes find it difficult to speak up?

When you think about public speaking, do you:

• Get that sinking feeling and start to shake. It’s your greatest fear.
• Feel nervous because you’re not as good as you’d like to be in front of a group.
• Get excited because you love it.

What would it be like to stand up in front of a group and talk in such a way that you hold their attention and make them laugh and afterwards people come up to you and say, ‘That was great’?

When you are in a group, do you find yourself leading conversations or are you waiting for someone else to lead you?

When you talk to other people, do you sometimes think to yourself, ‘That’s not what I meant to say’?

When someone else is talking, are you hearing all of what they’re saying or are you analysing, making judgements or planning what you want to say in return?

How does it affect you when you make a statement and someone gives back a distorted analysis of it? Are you sometimes guilty of this yourself?

Has anyone ever said to you, ‘Listen to me!’ or ‘You’re not listening!’?

Do you tailor your conversation to suit the person you’re talking to or do you think, ‘Take me as you find me’?

Do you find it easy to persuade people to do things? How would you like more of that on tap?

Are there words or phrases that you use to excess?

Are you a fast talker or do you tend to speak … more … sloooowly?

Do you find it easier to converse with someone who puts in lots of detail or someone who paints a big picture?

When you start a conversation with someone new, do you put aside thoughts of how you might impress them and instead concentrate on finding out about them?
Now say ‘Yippee!’ because whatever ‘failings’ you think you have discovered, are going to be potent opportunities for you to develop into a charismatic communicator. And as a charismatic communicator you’ll find it easy to:

• develop and maintain a positive attitude towards yourself and others
• know what you want and expect the best
• make others feel comfortable, safe and relaxed with you
• get others to open out to you
• pay close attention
• gather information
• use the information to communicate in a way that’s personally compelling to people

In my Charismatic Communication 101 series, I’m give you some great insights and tips to get you started.

The 9 Personality types of the Enneagram

There are so many personality style assessments around now, most of which can be dangerous if used without coaching or facilitation.     The danger lies in people putting themselves into the box and saying ‘oh well, this is me, get used to it’ or even worse in wanting to be in another group that appears more attractive.

 I recentlyhad a client do an enneagram assessment, and predictably, he didn’t like the profile he received.   He wanted to be what one school of Enneagram thought calls The Achiever.

In the current  ’strive and succeed’ social paradigm [which is already dying a death] that appears to be the way to go.    B-S.    Our personality, whether it’s that of a high achiever or a helper, is not who we are.   It is a mixture of a mask to cover up who we are and a set of gifts that when harnessed can be of immense and fulfilling value.

Our personality is a set of strategies that we’ve learned in relation to how the world has treated us and what works best.

HOW WE DEVELOP OUR PERSONALITY  - the quick and dirty guide

A child who was always told to be a ‘good little girl/boy’  and criticised for not being up to scratch may end up developing a personality that leads them to seek perfection and is rife with self criticism.

A child who was praised for helping others may develop up a personality whereby it learns that if we give, give, give, we’ll be loved.  

A child who was praisd for achievement, good marks at school, will learn thattheir value lies in material success and their personality will be skewed in that direction.

There are many reasons why we devleop our personalities.. sometimes it’s an abreaction to our parents.   A parent who is a perfectionist matched with a child who is arebel by nature may end up creating the anti-perfectionist… and that’s just one pattern.   

In the same token the influence of a perfectionist parent may lead the child to develop that trait themselves. 

PERSONALITY IN RELATIONSHIP

When we enter an engagement with another, we bring our personality to the table, and it is in that crucible, that often our worst traits are stirred… because our personality traits are like a defence system that says ‘if they know who I really am, they’d hate me’….

Imagine how that affects relationship.  Imagine how when you know about this stuff, you’ll be so much more compassionate with others, and learn to see their behaviors through the lens of  personality, knowing they are just like you in that they have specific  gifts and limitations only in their own unique way.

THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO PERSONALITY TYPES AND RELATIONSHIP

This marks the first of a series of portraits of a lover, based on the enneagram personality traits.   

Find out what kind of lover you are and learn how to maximise your own gifts and, equally as important, find out how to understand others and work with their personality to achieve greater rapport and deeper relationship.

with love

peta

http://www.attractyourperfectrelationship.com