Issue 1: Colourful Comfort Zones
Are you sitting comfortably? As you read this you are probably holding a mouse or pen. Just move the cursor about the screen for me, or write out ‘hello’. How was that? Comfortable? Easy? Alright?
Now switch to the other hand and do the same. Now how does that feel? Different? Most of us find that it feels awkward, uncomfortable, unusual.
We all have preferred ways of doing things; habits that form our comfort zones. It’s not that we can’t work other ways. We just don’t like it so much, don't do it so often; and we're usually less skilled at it.
The same applies for our styles and our personalities; our prefered ways of behaving and how we tend to see and make sense of things.
So what happens when have to leave our comfort zones? When our style isn't working for us; or we meet someone with a different set of preferences to us?
Carl Gustav Jung, through his work on typology, gave us a way to understand the similarities and differences in these preferences of personality and style.
Based on Jung's thinking and feeling functions, in combination with both extraversion and introversion, the Insights Discovery colours are 4 separate and unique energies that contribute to, drive and shape our personalities.
These colour energies is an important part of what makes us ‘us’. And what makes us like some people and different to others!
Understanding the dynamic of our own colours, their intensity, the dominance of some and our reluctance towards others, is very useful to understanding who we are.
So what are the strongest colours for you? How do you see yourself; and how do others describe you?
For most of us 1, 2, or even 3 of these colours mix to make up our style. But we all have 1 or more colour that we use least. How about yours?
In order to learn and grow we need to understand our comfort zones and come out of them when we need to. We all need to stretch to grow.
It's not about changing who you are but about being motivated and skilled at being adaptive when we need to.
Some useful questions to ask yourself are:
What is the order of my colours?
- Am I sometimes over reliant on 1 style?
- What colours would I give to the people I get on with best?
- What about those people I find difficult?
- How do I feel about and interact with people whose personalities are clearly different to mine?
- What jobs, tasks, situations make me feel uncomfortable? Are my colour preferences related?
We hope this helps. More to come on the colours, what's behind them, how to use them to be happier and more successful!
Best regards
Marcus
Director
“Every advance, every achievement of mankind, has been connected with an advance in self awareness.”
C. G. Jung, Psychological Reflections
M R Dynamics ltd are a leading licensed Insights Discovery Distributors of Insights Discovery Profiles and Training.
We work with organisations to improve business performance through developing skills, attitudes and capabilities.
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