Purpose
This process lets participants identify their personality challenges, pick a challenge that attracts and excites them, and provides steps to overcome these challenges.
The questions that guide us:
- How can we turn our mind into a useful mind - a mind which is helpful for us instead of sabotaging us?
- How can we make our mind operate optimally?
- How can we shape our personality to help us succeed?
What Are “Personality Challenges”?
Each of us has strengths and weaknesses. There are areas where it is easy for us because we have high-level skills, and there are other areas that are more difficult for us. For example, some people find it easy to stand on a stage and give a speech and others are paralyzed by fear of public speaking.
We all have positive qualities that support us and empower us, such as courage, resourcefulness, patience, and generosity, but we also have harmful patterns such as procrastination, worry, shame, complacency, and addictions.
So our personality challenges are the harmful patterns that we want to overcome and replace with empowering patterns. We also look at life areas that are difficult for us - in these areas it would be worthwhile for us to overcome our difficulty.
How Do We Do It?
Our personality is not fixed, and can be changed. It is definitely possible to replace weakening patterns with empowering patterns and develop our “self”. But how can we do it? For that, we need knowledge and a group.
Knowledge: We can learn to understand our “operating system”: how our mind operates, what our thoughts are based on, what causes our emotions and behavior. We can learn how to identify our patterns and habits, how to fix the “bugs” in the mind, and how to adopt new behaviors and approaches that benefit us.
Group: We can collaborate as a group, overcoming together the difficulty of doing it alone, especially regarding particularly stubborn patterns that we have been stuck with for a long time. We also have “blind spots” that only others can see about us, and they can recognize when we are telling ourselves excuses. Also, in areas such as social interaction, relationships, and connection to something greater than ourselves, it is impossible to develop alone but only through study and practice with other people.
What Happens at the Meeting?
We do a variety of exercises:
- Identifying positive qualities: We help each other identify our positive qualities and our helpful patterns, as well as our challenges, the debilitating patterns, and the “bugs” we have.
- Finding exciting directions: Out of all the potential directions of development, we identify the directions that we feel most excited about: “What challenge will lead me to a result that inspires me positively and I can feel enthusiastic about?” When we develop enthusiasm about new possibilities that open up to us, energy arises in us that propels us to action and desired results.
- Playfully challenging each other: With empathy, sensitivity, courage, and honesty, we playfully challenge each other. This means a light, curious, and fun tone: experimentation and gentle nudges rather than judgment, attack, or shaming. Those who ask for feedback and ask to be challenged get it from the group.
- Examining barriers: We examine what barriers we have that no longer serve us, and stem from restrictive social norms that we have absorbed from our environment through negative judgment, shame, guilt, and fear. We don’t take anything for granted and explore for ourselves what really suits us.
We have an Iron Rule: No one has to do anything at any stage. It is only at the edge of our comfort zone that our greatest development can take place, but we need to respect each person’s own pace. That’s why we don’t push anyone to do anything, but just give the support that is being asked.
Benefits
When we work to develop our personality, we reach a more positive perception of ourselves and a better feeling about who we are. We gain a greater sense of competence about life and a stronger sense of meaning: that we have purpose and direction in life. When we transform ourselves into a more powerful personality, we also achieve better external results.
Common questions
I have enough challenges in life, why should I look for more?
Of course, you don’t have to look for additional challenges beyond the ones you already have. However, it’s useful to learn how to look at the external challenges from the perspective of internal personality challenges, because what is really important is to what extent your personality knows how to deal with life circumstances beyond your control. The meetings can help you in a variety of ways to develop abilities to better cope with life’s challenges.