Leveraging The Features Of Your Personality
After 10 years of research and client work, I have developed these models to help figure out why we each do what we do so we can build self development strategies that actually work for us.
These are the models I use for a more holistic and comprehensive approach to health, fitness, and self-development.
We assess three distinct aspects: the mental, the physical, and the emotional. This gives us information about who you are in terms of your identity, your expression, and your personality.
Your identity is about your thoughts and memories and goals, your personality is about how you react in different situations, and your expression is about how that comes out in the real world; in your body, how you look, and how you behave.
So here’s how it works:
Each aspect is formed from a base unit that has a horizontal axis and a vertical axis. At the top of the vertical axis, there are fewer, larger entities and at the bottom there are many smaller parts.
As you move up the vertical axis, the lower parts come together to form the larger entities, and as you move down, the higher entities divide into their distinct parts.
Then on the horizontal axis we have two variables: One pushes up into higher complex forms and the other pulls down towards simpler, and more basic forms.
Both sides of the horizontal axis are equally important but they work against each other with each side balancing the other out.
So in short; the vertical axis is our position, higher or lower. And the horizontal axis is our direction, upwards or downwards.
In this article we are looking at Personality.
To assess your personality we first look at the position and direction of your feelings and emotions.
Your personality at the top of the vertical axis breaks down into your emotions in different situations. And your emotion is the result of all your feelings in a given moment.
Feelings are automatic responses to the situations we are in, reacting positively or negatively to our surroundings. And when your feelings are out of alignment, your emotions and personality will also be out of alignment.
What I mean by that is you won’t have a clear sense of who you are, how you’re meant to react, or why you feel the way you feel.
So the two sides of the horizontal axis bring things into alignment at all these levels, from bottom to top.
On the left - stage left - we have External signals and on the other side we have Internal signals.
Here, External signals are what we mean when we talk about the aura someone gives off. We pick up on the body-language, subtle expressions, and the reactions of other people and that has a direct effect on our own emotions.
Internal signals are more like what we mean when we talk about vibes. The ways that little clues in our surroundings unconsciously remind us of similar situations we have experienced before and give us an intuitive feel for what is going on around us.
I call these “mystery signals” because we transmit and receive them subconsciously and it’s difficult for us to talk about where they come from or give a logical reason for the way we feel because of them.
External signals are how a particular personality can move down and dissipate into our individual feelings.
This happens when some sadness shows up amongst your feelings as someone is telling you a story and they start to cry. Even if it turns out the person was happy crying or there’s nothing very sad about the story.
Internal signals are how our individual feelings can move up and aggregate into a particular personality.
This happens when you are have a lot of good things happen to you one after the other and because that makes you feel joyful and happy you just go about your life as a more positive and confident person overall.
So how do we leverage the features of your personality?
Your leading personality traits are relatively stable across time, but their expression is deeply influenced by experience. Our feelings show up differently depending on the people around us and the situations we find ourselves in.
That’s why some environments bring out your best while others make you feel disconnected, stuck, or out of sync.
The key to managing your personality is not in changing who you are but in leveraging these traits in positive ways. We do this by choosing environments, roles, and peers that best fit to your particular personality.
Even emotions that seem like weaknesses—anxiety, perfectionism, impulsivity—can be powerful assets when applied in the right context.
So when something feels off, it’s not necessarily because there’s something wrong with you. You might just be positioned in a less than ideal environment.
But when an environment gives us bad vibes, it’s not always because the environment itself is bad.
Before we go into this a bit more deeply, it’s important to highlight that feelings arrive both externally (from other people) and internally.
Sensory input from the environment informs our memories and expectations and this creates an impression of ourselves in the world. This impression is what we react to internally.
Unfortunately, our sense of self can be incomplete, outdated, and distorted by past traumas or deluded fantasies. This is why our feelings can be misleading when we don't have a grip on the real world. So it’s important to keep that in mind when you are dealing with your emotions.
Human beings have four fundamental needs:
Novelty - newness and change
Stability - coherence and predictability
Community - help from other people
Safety - certainty about the future
However, we don’t all need them the same amount. And thank God for that because if we all needed the exact same things the exact same amount we wouldn’t function as a society.
Some people need to be discovering new ideas and having new experiences all the time. Some people don’t really care about new things at all.
Some people need everything to meet their expectations logically and coherently. Some people are fine with things being a bit messy.
Some people need to have others around them and love being part of a group. Some people don’t really mind being alone most of the time.
Some people need to know exactly what’s going to happen at all times. Some people are unfazed by ambiguity and risk.
Our feelings all come from our drive to fulfil these basic needs, each starting as a simple automatic reaction to the situation we are in.
When there’s difference and newness, people who need Novelty react with feelings of Curiosity. But too much strangeness and deviance leads to feelings of Disgust.
When things are going well, people who need Stability react with feelings of Joy. But when things don’t go to plan, this leads to feelings of Anger.
When in the presence of others who can help, people who need Community react with feelings of Happiness. But when help is needed in the moment, this leads to feelings of Sadness.
When things are risky and uncertain, people who need Safety react with feelings of Fear. But when there is the potential for many positive outcomes, this leads to feelings of Excitement.
These core tendencies don’t change significantly over time. A person who needs stability will always gravitate toward structure and someone who needs novelty will always seek out the unknown. But the same trait can lead to success or disorder depending on the context.
Your need for stability might express itself as being meticulous and responsible in a corporate role but appear overly controlling and rigid in a startup.
Your need for safety might benefit you in risk assessment roles, but in social situations you might end up feeling overwhelmed and insecure.
In the wrong setting, your natural strengths can be expressed in ways that don’t serve you.
Social groups, work structures, and cultural expectations can transmit confusing signals that that don’t align with what the situation actually requires.
Those who are highly attuned to external signals can read people well and adapt easily, but this can make them too focused on approval, or prone to losing themselves in the expectations of others. You might mistake a neutral expression for rejection and overcompensate to win approval.
Others rely more on internal signals. They have strong self-awareness and personal conviction, but this can make them unaware of how they’re coming across. You might struggle to engage in collaborative environments because you’re only processing everything from your own perspective.
Understanding where you fall on this axis helps you adjust. You don’t want to be too externally driven, bending to every social cue. But you also don’t want to be too internally driven, ignoring the valuable input of others around you.
The focus here is on strategically placing yourself in environments that naturally amplify strengths and minimise weaknesses.
Environments that are aligned with our internal signals reinforce and give us an optimistic internal sense of who we are in the world. Our automatic reactions create good outcomes these allow us to give a positive frame to the way we feel because it has benefitted us in some way.
Even the negative feelings of disgust, anger, sadness, and fear can feel like positive traits in the right environment when they create positive outcomes.
Someone who leads with Fear might be able to steer their vigilance and attention into mitigating risk or potential threats, and calling others to action in times of crisis.
Someone who leads with Sadness might find that their social sensitivity helps them when they apply it in situations where others are always around, working as a team or caring for others.
Someone who leads with Anger might be able to steer their perfectionism and determination into high standards, rigorous precision, and quality execution of focused work.
Someone who leads with Disgust might even be able to make their preference for the familiar work in their favour when it's applied in situations that need to be protected from intrusion and corruption.
The key reason that different personalities exist is for us to work together and benefit from the strengths of others. We all need novelty, stability, community, and safety. But not always the same amount at the same time. For this reason we each have a unique take based on how we feel about things in the moment.
But the people we interact with also shape how we feel and some traits work especially well together.
The wrong group can amplify negativity, while the right one can bring out the best in us. Environments that are aligned in external signals are filled with people who are able to pick up on what the other is feeling and have that complement their instincts so the group can act as one while benefiting from a diversity of perspectives.
For example, people who lead with Curiosity are complemented by people who lead with Anger. The creative and expansive one helps them to generate ideas together. The strict one gets them to implement those ideas and keeps them on the rails.
People who lead with Happiness are balanced by those who lead with Fear. The energetic, social one brings the party. But the cautious one helps them to keep things in budget and makes sure they don't let things get too out of hand.
We need good friends around us because when we pick up on their feelings, they influence our own emotions, and we end up doing things that are better for everyone. This also helps us to weaken the effects of those internal distortions and delusions that can create negative or disordered emotional spirals.
Your leading personality traits are mostly fixed, but the way those feelings are expressed is infinitely adaptable. The key to long-term fulfilment and effectiveness isn’t trying to change your personality but in placing yourself in right context.
The right settings, peers, and professional environments can turn personality from a constraint into a strategic advantage that benefits you and the people around you.
I’m Ben Fleming, and if you’re a forward thinker of any kind, I want to partner with you and use my expertise in health and fitness to help you become the person you want to be so you can build the future you want to see.
You and I can build a better world for everyone forever together.
Let me know what you’re working on!
Comment below or send me a message.
My handle is @GymnasiOnUK on Youtube, Twitter, Substack, and Instagram.
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