In part 1 I talked about The Pattern of Being You - how the human onion forms. You can watch it now if you’ve not seen it: The Pattern of Being You. In this part I'm going to share a bit more on the mechanics of how the human onion forms. Why does this matter? Understanding the patterns of you brings a deeper level of self-awareness. Self-awareness leads to self-management. Self-management means you are making choices about how and what you communicate.

The earliest patterns of you are fundamental. This is about how you responded to early challenges in your life, the meaning you made of those challenges, and the game you got together to overcome them. The thing is, you will have very little memory of these events (if any at all). And actually, what’s more important here is the meaning you made of those events.

Using Character Analysis (The 5 Character Structures), you can discover some helpful insights into how you constructed your personality. It goes something like this.

Think about the following arrows as energy and attention (see video)

1. This is what you were trying to do - for example explore who you were as a separate self.

2. Something got in the way - maybe a rejection from a parent that you took to mean something was wrong with you.

3. It became stuck - you blocked the experience - and that blocking happened emotionally, physically (because to block emotion you have to do something physical with your body), and it happened psychologically.

4. This is what you did instead. You diverted your energy and attention to other behaviours. Perhaps something like objective thinking or problem solving.

5. Repeating those patterns led to the strengths you developed by doing this over and over.

6. But there is a piece of you still trying to complete the original task (the bit that feels like it’s missing). 

7. However that takes you back into the feeling you don’t like (that something is wrong); Your hot buttons of you like. So you jump straight back into pattern.

8. And then there is the stuff you would rather hide… the bits that leak off into the shadows. This is where the real liberation is (the bits of you it's time to make friends with!)

Understanding these things gets you unstuck. It's like getting the keys to unlocking your personality prison. A good vehicle for exploring this work is called The 5 Character Structures. The 5 Character Structures is a fantastic workshop to run for senior leadership teams where you get to learn about each other's strengths and challenges in a way that connects you for more productive team working.

In part 3 I'm going to talk about the Your Diamond Life. It’s a conversation about getting back to who you really are, and how that liberates your leadership.