photo © 2009 Mykl Roventine | more info (via: Wylio)

In July, Vernon wrote about needing to shift her closest relationships to support her personal and professional goals. On the one hand, you may have completely innocuous contacts who aren’t actively holding you back, but help maintain a stasis that doesn’t give you the occasional kick in the pants you need to grow as a person. Alternately, some relationships allow you to keep that white-knuckled grip on  bad patterns that you need to resolve before you can move on to the next adventure in your life.

But when you’re ready to let go, shift happens.

By doing so, we create room for nutritious people to show up and help us learn, grow, and move towards our next level of success. . . I realized that when the people around you are in a different place in their social, emotional, or spiritual development, their energy can have a real stymieing impact on how you show up to life each day. Once these people lose their hold on you, you feel lighter and you can shine brighter.

When I got laid off a two months ago, I suddenly had the time to reassess what I wanted and redirect my energy towards the people who challenge me to be better. I’ve actively sought out people that I want to be like and whose trajectories and energy I admire, because focusing on where I want to be is going to take me further than settling for the status quo.  As I result I’ve met a lot of people for lunch and coffee; I’m still slightly surprised when someone that seemed so out of reach a few months ago doesn’t hesitate to meet up and talk.

Overall, both the long-time friends and tertiary acquaintances passing through, inspire me.  These are the people that believe in the possibility and reality of who and what I want to be in 5 years, whether they’ve verbalized it or not.  My peeps are the folks that only saw a bright side to a layoff in this dreadful economy; it would be the impetus for something better, and they have not let me forget it.

Without realizing it, I shed the naysayers and the people who, through no fault of their own, reinforced my insecurities just by the very nature of those relationships.  Fully embracing the professional I could be with a bit more focus and practice, I am so much more aware of the psychological triggers that held me back, and I’m more readily dismissing them when those moments appear.

And I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the people that are inspiring me to be my best self just by being their true selves.  For the record, I include Elisa, Susan, Monica, Andrew, Julia and Tamara in that category, along with a bunch of people who don’t have a linkable online presence.

It’s been to tremendous effect.  I have more energy; there’s a bounce in my step that just hasn’t been there for so long I can’t remember the last time I bounced.  Having discovered the joy of the runner’s high, endorphins, I’ve lost a few pounds.  Totally novel to me, I constantly feel like I’m on the cusp of something big. . . of a transition that will change my life, irrevocably for the better.  It’s almost beyond words. I feel alive.

In letting go of people that aren’t a reflection of my soul, I believe in the achievability of my goals more than ever.

Your turn. As Vernon prompts, “Do the relationships in my life empower me to live my best life?”  If not, what are you going to do about it?

Today I stumbled across Signal Patterns today via a FaceBook ad. I typically don’t click on those ads, but I’m a sucker for online quizzes.

Signal Patterns (admittedly in beta) wants to not only provide you with in depth analysis of your personality (via 45 traits) and preferences (music, with other topics to be added later), but wants you to be able to share the findings with your friends, as well as meet other people like you.   It’ll pull in your profile details from FaceBook and MySpace so you don’t have to create yet another profile page. 

Its primary shortcoming is the length of the test.  100 questions are used to get at 90 personality traits.  Currently, they list the questions one at a time.  By the time I had clicked through the 20th question, I was bored. . . but I committed to the endurance event because I wanted to see the outcome 80 questions later.  By the end, I was annoyed it had taken so long. 

Signal patterns would be better served by including 10 questions per page.  Nor would it hurt to include some cheeky one-liners encouraging testers to keep on clicking.   I’d love to see their drop off rate — people who just give up and jump to another site.

Next, some of the statements are double-barreled.  For each statement, I must gauge on a scale from not like me at all to very like me.   But some of the questions include 2 statements that could conceivably contradict each other; I agree with one but not the other.  After reading through seemingly accurate results, I’m less concerned with this issue, but those questions might need some tweaking.

My third issue with the site:  After clicking though 100 responses, you have to register with the site to get your results.  (Don’t force me to register; if I find the results worthwhile I’ll do so to save them. ) I hate coercion in all forms, but I wanted my test results; I imagine others would feel the same way.  I just spent 20+ minutes clicking away, so I want results!  I registered with an old Excite account, so I could guiltlessly sever ties if not impressed with the findings.   

But I find myself nodding my head at the findings.  You can take a look at your results graphically by trait or the factors that those traits are clustered into.

 My top 10 traits (of 90)

• Introspective 
• Aesthetic 
• Creative 
• Intellectual 
• Independent 
• Organized 
• Astute 
• Solitary 
• Unsettled (comfortable on home turf, less so in unfamiliar social settings)
• Discreet

  

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