Strengths, overplayed
Ian Browne
Early careers professional - Apprenticeships - Helping leaders & teams Stress Less
Growing our strengths is important.? But your strengths can also undermine your success?
When our strengths are working for us, they can take us to places we’d never imagine.
?But strengths that are overplayed or strengths that we rely on too much to get us through life can feed those feelings of Imposter Syndrome.??
?Rather than supporting and moving us forward they take us into a world of self-sabotage.
?In the last article we were looking at how people with a strong Influence personality type can use this to their advantage but also where the danger and problems might lie when this is overplayed.
?In this article we’re taking another DISC type personality and looking at those with the personality type of Conscientiousness – these are people who value detail and things being accurate and just right.
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There are four of these, we’ll all prefer one, but we’ll all come up against people with the different types and have to learn to work with each.? So read on, discover if you’re the one who knows all the details and everything that’s right and wrong, or what to do if you come across one.
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Unleashing your potential
?Every day, every hour you’re faced with a series of choices.? ?Your brain doesn’t have time to deliberate every one of them, to present you with options to sit, ponder and decide.
?And it’s not that great at figuring out the relative importance of one question from another.
?The brain uses pattern recognition to get more things done – have I seen this thing before, do I know what I usually do in these circumstances, am I sensing danger in doing the same thing again.
?It why you always pick from the same range of sandwich options when you’re in a rush and your mind goes into a spin when someone tells you one of the ingredients you rely on is out of stock.
?Or maybe they close the road on your regular route into work – it’s not the diversion that’s sending your head spinning, it’s driving through unrecognisable neighbourhoods and then when you’re finally off the detour and see familiar sights again, your brain relaxes.
?This is an amazing feature of your brain but also has one big downside – it will happily repeat patterns that are unhelpful to your overall potential and progress, often without you realising it.??
To keep you safe, it recognises what you’re strong at.? But all strengths can be overplayed and that’s where the problems begin for us.
?This is self-sabotaging.?? The fastest and most effective way to unlock productivity and your career potential is to learn to take your foot off the brake and overcome your tendency to self-sabotage.
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What’s your default personality type
?There are many different models out there that help us to understand our default and dominant style.? The default is where we’ll normally snap to when left unchallenged.?
?Here we’re using DISC – it’s easy to understand and there are lots of assessments you can take online.?
?Here’s a link to everything DISC https://www.discprofiles.com/disc-styles/
?In the DISC model there are four personality types.
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-?????? Dominance
-?????? Influence
-?????? Steadiness
-?????? Conscientiousness
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We all have the four elements but we will sway towards one or two.? On our best days this is how we perform awesomely.?? But the more we rely on one set style, the greater the problems this creates for us.
?Strength overplayed, becomes a hindrance and a form of self-sabotage that undermines our productivity and performance.
?Because covering all four types would make this article a little long, I’m going to break it up into the four types.?? And this one is on Conscientous.
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?C is for conscientious
?If you’re a C your strength lies in being conscientious.? On a good day you’re analytical, detail oriented, prized for and take pride in accuracy.?? Sometimes you can share the same desire of D-types to question what others are telling you.
?Whereas D types are focussed on whether the person is trustworthy, you’re focussed on whether the solution and the idea is sound.? You’re likely to have a strength in being objective and analytical.? But setting you apart from the D-types you’re also diplomatic.??
?You’re likely to be a reflector, absorbing and learning as you go, taking pride in your competency and being seen by others as competent.
?And this can be what trips you up.? On your bad days you can be over-hard on yourself, set unrealistic expectations.? There are times when fatalistically you reflect that some situations are impossible simply because there is no perfect or flawless answer out of the situation.
?Things half done or even 80% done come hard.? And you can find yourself sweating over details only to find later that people really didn’t care much about them.? That can make you frustrated and a little angry with folk who don’t try as hard as you, wing their way through situations, hide stuff under the carpet and get all the glory.
?When things are uncertain you’re at your least comfortable because you can’t be in command of everything.? Even though you pride yourself on competence, when you’re feeling out of your depth, you’ll be the last to ask for help because help is a sign of weakness and sharing things that are less than perfect is difficult to tolerate.
?As a C type your fear may be being exposed for not being sufficiently knowledgeable.? You create high standards for yourself, often including measures that are hard to live up to.?? If truth be told you know that you set expectations higher than others have of you.??
In theory it’s because even if you miss slightly, you’ll still come out on top.? The downside is you beat yourself up for the miss even if others don’t really care.
?Feedback is often construed as criticism and questioning of your competence.
?The trick for you as a C type is to reframe your sense of perfection.?? Work a little harder on clarifying people’s expectations and meeting these rather than aiming to constantly exceed against your own idealised view.? You can choose to see things you don’t know as things you don’t know YET.??? Feedback is a way of making the end solution better.? Mistakes are part of a learning process and a sign you’re pushing boundaries.
?Remember it’s what you do from mistakes that really counts.
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Your key take-away
Imposter Syndrome thrives in a space of self-doubt and guilt.?? Behind most of what we fear lies an innate strength that is overplayed.
?Compassion for yourself and towards others is key to diffusing imposter syndrome before it gets hold.?? Disrupting the unhelpful thinking patterns that often take hold.
?Guilt is the worst emotion for driving forward performance, productivity & ultimately shaping your career.? It is the ultimate saboteur.
?In my coaching I’ll often be asked what productivity tips can you offer, how can I improve my performance, how when I’m working flat out as it is can I possibly step up and take on more responsibility – after all there’s only 24 hours in a single day right?
?And you are right?? That step up means letting go of some of the patterns that got you to where you are today.?? The things that sabotage your capability to be happy and productive.
?As you know if you look me up, I use the Positive Intelligence methodology to take clients through this deep thinking at a very individual level – to learn to eradicate the unhelpful thought patterns in themselves and develop positive intelligence within themselves and those around them.
?Remember the fastest and most effective way to improve your productivity, performance and ultimately the career success you want, is to take your foot off the brake pedal.
If you want my help figuring out how to do this, just reach out to me
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Take action
You can’t fix what you don’t know.? Click below to take your free saboteur assessment.
?There’s no obligation to take this further.? If you want to go it alone, that’s OK.
?Overcoming self-sabotage is the fastest and most effective way to impove your productivity, performance and ultimately your career success.
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Barnet and Southgate College student and aspiring apprentice and strives to make an impact to the world and an autistic individual
3 个月That is so good glad to see it and you are amazing and a legend as well Ian