Friday, March 11, 2011

Don't fight yourself - you can be involved in lots of things

In my coaching recently a theme has emerged around Myers Briggs. We all have preferences in our behavior that are hard wired. These are our natural preferences and asking us to operate outside these preferences is asking us to write with our non-dominant hand.

One person said "I feel like I am involved in too many things". Because we share the N and P, I looked at her with alarm and said "Says who?". As long as the number of activities she is involved in feeds her, then they are the right number of activities. If she feels overwhelmed then she has choices to make.

Today we did an exercise on prioritization where she listed all of her activities and placed them above the horizontal line (to keep) and below the line (to drop). She also placed them relative to the line for how important they are. Far away from the line meant there was no doubt, and close to the line, are the ones to discuss and determine what their real priority is.

We also discussed that because of the NP, the relative priority could change based on new learning or just because.

Society might say to her that she is involved in too many things, but NPs needs lots of activities to get recharged, and they need those to be able to change over time.

Our focus in coaching is for her not to fight against her preferences, or it will be tiring and she will be writing too much with her non-dominant hand. Have as many balls in the air as you want as long as you are sane and not dropping too many of them. The ones that hit the floor, should probably be below the cut line anyway.


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