There are many views about people’s personalities. This piece looks at one approach. It focuses on the real you, the role you and the results you. Let’s explore these themes.
The Real You
This is who you really are. It involves focuses on your personality characteristics. These include the following things:
Your personality style … Your spirit, strengths and successes … Your attitude, abilities and achievements … Your emotions and experiences … Your knowledge … Your ability to manage your feelings in a positive way.
Your choices and the consequences … Your successful and unsuccessful patterns … Your self-talk … Your belief system and how you translate this into behaviour… Your awareness of how your actions affect other people.
Your purpose, principles and picture of success … Your life goals … Your health, hopes and happiness … Your potential contribution to people and the planet … Your ability to do your best and feel at peace.
There will be times when feel able to be the real you. These may be when you feel safe or stimulated to express yourself in ways that are satisfying. Let’s move onto another aspect of your personality.
The Role You
This involves you going into role in your personal or professional life. You may build on parts of your personality and express these by taking some of the following routes.
You may go into role as a parent, partner or friend. You may go into role as a counsellor, educator, coach, mentor or trusted advisor. You may go into role as an artist, writer, singer or other kind of performer.
You may go into role as a worker, gardener, carpenter, architect, nurse, doctor or technical expert. You may go into role as a team member, work colleague, manager, leader or in another role.
A person can still be real when going into role. They may build on their professional strengths, follow strategies that work and aim to deliver success.
Some introverts, for example, do good work by going into role. They rehearse ahead of time before moving into action. They then focus on the rules they aim to follow – such as the professional guidelines – and do their best to achieve the desired results.
There may be many times when you are able to be real or go into role. These can lead to the next stage.
The Results You
This involves focusing on the results you produce. These may include some of the following things.
You may behave in ways that lead to emotional results. These could lead to yourself or other people feeling certain things – such as feeling encouraged, excited, hopeful, happy or other emotions.
You may behave in ways that lead to tangible results. These may include doing certain kinds of work or creating services, products or other things that lead to yourself or other people achieving success.
“By their fruits you shall know them,” we are told. The emotions, experiences and other things we help to create can produce a certain kind of legacy.
Let’s return to your own life and work. When are you the real you? Who are the people with whom you feel safe enough to be yourself? What are the kinds of situations where you are able to express your real self?
When do you go into role? When do you find this rewarding? What do you do then to build on your strengths, apply your skills and achieve success? What may be the benefits for you and other people?
What are the results you may produce? When do you help people to enjoy positive emotions? When do you help to create positive experiences? When do you help to create other kinds of positive results?
If you wish, try tackling the exercise on this theme. This invites you to describe a situation when you may follow some elements of these approaches.
You may do this when being the real you. You may do it when choosing to go into a rewarding role. You may also sometimes encourage other people to be their real selves or to develop in their role. If you wish, try completing the following sentences.
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