Positive Core Value Tendencies
You are friendly, gregarious, and sociable.
You have an intuitive sense for what people expect. You instinctively know what im age to present to be success ful.
You are adaptable. You can negotiate and compromise to get things accomplished. You are optimistic, enthusias tic, and self-confident. You have the capacity for hard work. You have tremendous enthusiasm for projects and goals.
Distorted Core Characteristics Your relationships can be utili tarian and superficial.
You may sell out and lose your personal self for the sake of a public mask.
You can be chameleon-like. You may betray your inner self for the sake of a role and com promise.
You may deceive yourself and others by only portraying a successful image.
You can become a workaholic. You exhibit Type A behavior. You perform and achieve in order to get approval.
Objective Paradigm
Hope
Adaptive Cognitive Schema:
You can trust that all will run
smoothly even when you're not working. You trust and have hope the world won't stop when you do.
You operate in harmony with natural life processes and within the social and natural laws.
"irtue: TruthfUlness
Adaptive Emotional Schema: You are truthful to your own inner self, feelings, and de sires.Your outer image matches your inner reality.
You are honest and loyal to others.
Distorting Paradigm
Efficiency
Maladaptive Cognitive Schema: You believe that the smooth running of the organization or operation or cosmos depends mainly on your interventions. You believe you are above the law. Your own operating rules are more efficient than univer sal principles. You may come to believe that the end justifies the means.
Passion:
Deceit
Maladaptive Emotional Schema: You lose touch with your real feelings and wants and present programmed, plan ned feelings instead.
You can deceive yourself and others into believing that the image presented is your real self. You live out of an image vs. out of real emotional pref erences.
You show others what you think they want to see or what looks successful.
Area of Avoidance:
Failure
The area you are out of touch with and avoid is failure. You want to present an image of success so you hide anything that may appear less than successful or you reframe happenings in your life (Le., you say, "There are no failures in life; there are only learning experiences").
Defense Mechanism:
Identification
To keep failure out of your awareness, you identify with what ever successful mask or role you are playing at the time. You identify with your role instead of with yourself.
How the Distortion of This Style Developed
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You were rewarded for your achievements rather than for yourself.•
Your worth depended on what you did instead of who you were.•
You were loved for what you produced or for the status you achieved.•
Playing a role was safer and got you further than being your self.•
Performance and image were rewarded in place of emotional connections and deep involvements with others.•
You may have been a precocious child who got approval and attention by being successful at what you did, but you lost touch with your own feelings and preferences.•
Success, winning, getting ahead, and looking good were all emphasized in your family.•
Being the way other people wanted you to be got you what you wanted. You learned how to perform instead of how to be.•
Being efficient, organized, goal-oriented, and hard-working got you ahead of others.•
Programming yourself and being adaptable helped you to survive.What You Miss as a Result of the Distortion of Your Style
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The security that comes from knowing your worth is basedon your self instead of your productions.
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Knowing your value doesn't depend on market conditions,i.e., what others expect of you now.
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The experience of being appreciated for yourself and not foryour achievements.
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Being yourself, expressing yourself, letting others know youwithout having to filter yourself through a role or mask.
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Not being afraid of failing; detachment from success; doingsomething because it's worth doing whether it's successful or not.
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Feeling your own feelings vs. replacing them with performance.
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Being the master of your work instead of being mastered byyour work.
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The ability to relax and let others run things or let the universe run itself.
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Emotional involvement with others resulting from the meeting of two real selves; genuine intimate relationships.
Paradigm Shifts You May Experience Under Stressful Conditions
A
Shift to the Low Side of Your Own Style
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You may work harder, be even more on the go, take on moreprojects, shake more hands, put out even more press releases on yourself and your projects.
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You may become more concerned about your image and mayimitate other roles or models instead of expressing yourself.
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You may doubt your self-worth and whether you really doA
Shift to the Low Side of Style 9
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Besides wanting to avoid failure, you may also try to avoid conflict, both inner conflict and conflict with others.•
Instead of dealing with the pain or the problem, you may avoid it, procrastinate, distract yourself, or numb yourself.•
You may replace or numb your real feelings with more work.•
You may give up on your natural efficiency and problem-solving abilities and say,