How to discover who you could become
When David Royston-Lee and I run Brand You seminars, the Values exercise is one of the most popular. We help people to identify their values by asking them (a) to make a list of everyone they admire, and (b) to list the qualities for which they admire each person. The same qualities come up over and over again. The qualities you see in people you admire are those you possess but haven’t fully manifested. In the meantime you project them onto other people.
You might say, “But I’ll never be like Michelangelo or Mother Teresa”. That’s not the point. If you dig a little deeper and identify the individual qualities that you admire in them, you will find that you possess them too. You may have repressed them or you may not have given them full expression – yet. For example, you might admire Michelangelo’s creativity or versatility or vision. You might admire Mother Teresa’s compassion or dedication or humility.
Once you have identified a quality that you admire in lots of people, it’s time to dig deeper still. The key question is How? If you admire people who are creative, in what way are they creative? Do they have ideas out of the blue which they then execute? Do they take existing components and assemble them in a new way? Do they develop creative solutions to tricky technical problems? Do they bounce ideas around among a group of people until something new emerges?
Once you recognise a quality that you have projected onto other people, you can reclaim it and make it your own. If you admire people who are highly creative in a particular way, it’s time for you to be more creative in that particular way. If you admire people who are influential in a certain way, it’s time for you to exert more influence in that way. You don’t have to give up your current job or business. You can start right now, exactly where you are. Reclaiming your projections makes you whole and helps you fulfil your potential.
Copyright John Purkiss 2010. With thanks to David Royston-Lee, whose latest book How To Win From The Start, was published on July 1: http://htwfts.com. Further information on Brand You is at www.brandyou.info.
