Nailing this process is like having your own super power!
Me, Myself and Irene with Jim Carrey was a great comedy that demonstrates the different approaches to situations that different characters take. Of course in this movie Jim Carrey had split personality disorder that had been bought on by too much stress. He lived with Hank and Charlie as his personalities. I’d like to be super clear that multiple personalities is not what I am referring to by ‘power characters’. The point I’d like to make is, sometimes Hank got things done in a way that Charlie could not.
Power Characters are the characters that we have within us that we can mindfully and consciously call on in specific moments for specific outcomes. As opposed to falling victim to maybe some of our more conditioned, exercised character traits out of unconscious habit that don’t have what it takes to get us through some of our more demanding or challenging situations.
For example, if you are running a project or if you are a business owner and the buck stops with you, many of your decisions need to be made with the character traits of ‘The CEO’ as opposed to, ‘The Technician’.
Here is an exercise that I take my clients through to help them identify the characters that don’t serve them and also how to tap into their ‘power characters’.
5 Steps for tapping into your ‘power characters’
- Identify what the results are in your life that you don’t want. What is it that you would like to try and do better or do differently or to change. Name the problem.
- Get clear on what this outcome has been costing you financially, emotionally, physically etc. And take a good look at how long you have been putting up with this. (we get what we put up with)
- Decide what your ideal outcome would be instead. What are your real goals? If there was a magic wand opportunity, what is it that you would wish for?
- Name the character traits and even name the character that holds the problem or the lacking results in place.
- Name the character traits and even name the character that it would take in order to bring your wishes or goals or ideal outcomes into your life and to hold them there.
This process takes a bit of self reflection and some discipline to lock it in, however, when you can identify the character traits that you unconsciously call on that don’t always serve you, it is worth the effort involved to do this. Some characters are underpinned by fear and weakness and limitation and a lack of resilience while other characters are underpinned by vision and bravery and adventure and trust and optimism. If you would like some help going through these 5 steps, here is a link for a free 30 minute session.
Or try this free ‘your characters’ cheat sheet from one of my online programs to help you identify some of your own character traits.
Teaming with you for your greatest success and happiness
