What is Your Way of Being?

In every encounter you have with another human being you affect them in some way.  How you affect them depends on what I refer to as your ‘way of being’.

Like your fingerprint, your way of being is uniquely yours and is made up of a multitude of different things -  your posture, the way you speak, your style of dress, how you walk , your moods, your mannerisms, the way you laugh… and the list goes on.   What I am not referring here to simple body language which can change depending on the emotion you are feeling in any given moment.  Rather I am referring to something that goes beyond that, which can be far more subtle and which is connected more deeply to the core beliefs you have about yourself and what you see as possible for yourself in life.

Often people are completely oblivious to their way of being and rarely give much thought to the experience others have of them.  But given the impact your way of being can have on your ability to achieve what you want in life whether in the realm of your relationships, your career or your general sense of wellbeing, I invite you to take a few moments to think about how your way of being affects those whom you interact day in your personal and professional relationships.

Here are a few questions to reflect on:

• How does your presence make other people feel? Do you leave them feeling good about themselves or ‘less than’ for having spent time with you?
• Are you someone who makes others feel like you are genuinely interested in them or is your talk all about you leaving others feeling like you are far more interested in your own agenda, issues and concerns than anything or anyone else?
• Do you radiate ease with yourself (and so put others at ease) or are you more uptight, tense or self-conscience?
• Are you warm, open and friendly or more of a closed book who keeps people at a distance and makes people feel like they don’t really know you and you really don’t want them to?

You probably know people yourself whom you really enjoy being around because there is something about their way of being that just makes you feel good. Perhaps they are very positive and passionate and leave you feeling more enthusiastic yourself. Perhaps they are very warm and accepting and make you feel more at ease and peaceful in yourself and less self-critical.  Perhaps they are very funny and jovial and help you to lighten up and not take yourself so seriously.  Likewise you probably also know people who are so completely preoccupied with themselves that even after meeting them for the 3^rd or 4^th time they still cannot remember anything you shared with them in previous encounters. Or others who are so pessimistic that they leave you feeling drained, flat and like jumping off the nearest bridge (so to speak).

There are as many different ways of being as there are people on the planet and so it’s not that any one way of being is necessarily better or worse than another. Humanity thrives on diversity. Rather it is a question of whether your current way of being is serving you or not. That is, is there something about an aspect of your way of being that is hindering you from achieving the fulfillment and success in your career, relationships and life -  however you personally define ‘success’ – that you are capable of.

So often people are oblivious to how they affect others and don’t realize that an aspect of their own way of being can be the biggest obstacle they face to getting what they want. For instance:

• someone who is very forceful and opinionated can make others feel pushed around. This gets people off side, drives them away and reduces rather than enhances their effectiveness in the workplace, in their personal relationships and in their life in general
• someone who is very ‘nice’ may find themselves being taken advantage of or committing to things they really don’t want to because they don’t want to cause any offense to anyone - ever – which may result in them ending up feeling used and resentful
• someone else who is very timid, shy and diminutive may find may it difficult to build the kind of relationships they want and achieve their goals because they have not learnt how to assert or express themselves effectively and avoid opportunities that may require on them to take on leadership role 
• someone who is resigned and lacking self confidence may tend toward procrastination and complaint and so fail to attract either the opportunities or the relationships that could improve their situation

So, perhaps there is something in your way of being you can readily identify that is limiting your ability to have what you most want in your relationships and in your life.  Then again, perhaps not in which case, terrific!   But regardless of how satisfied you are with your life I encourage you to become more conscious of your way of being and how you affect those you interact with. Doing so may give you some really valuable insights that will help you to move forward in your life with not only more ease but with far greater success in every area of your life.  

ACTION CHALLENGE:

I mentioned above that one of the elements that contribute to your way of being is how we hold ourselves physically. The fact is your posture and your way of moving in the world has a big impact on your ‘way of being’ in the world.  If you sit in any public place and do some ‘people watching’ you will notice you can tell a lot about the person just by the way they walk and move through their day.

Turning the spotlight onto yourself, what do you think others would notice about you as you moved through your day? What is your posture like? Do you walk quickly or do you dawdle as though you have no real sense of where you want to go anyway? Do you hold yourself up tall or are you slumped over looking only at the ground just ahead of you? Do you have a smile on your face or a frown? Do you make eye contact with people you encounter (including strangers you pass on the street) or do you avoid it? Do you smile easily or save it for special occasions?  As I said above, what I am referring to goes beyond simple body language which can change depending on the emotion you are feeling in any given moment.  Rather I am referring to something that can be far more subtle and is connected more deeply to the core beliefs you have yourself.

So if you want to begin with making a start toward shifting your way of being, I suggest you begin by just thinking about how you would hold yourself if you were the kind of person you really aspired to be.

For instance:

• if you were more confident and self assured how would that shift the way you move?     
• if you were more open and friendly how would that shift the expression you have on your face?
• if you were more light hearted how would that shift the way you walked? Perhaps you might have more bounce in your step or more of a smile on your face. 

Initially you might feel a little strange and awkward as you shift the way you hold yourself. That’s completely normal.  Just stick with it anyway and note the way it shifts how you actually feel in yourself when you do stand taller, walk more assuredly and connect with people in a more open, confident and friendly way.

When I first began this work myself I realized that the way I moved was as though I was in a perpetual hurry. I was amazed (and a little perplexed) the first time I became conscious of how I put my shoulders forward as though in a race to get the finish line first.  Trying to straighten up and slow down a tad has been quite a challenge for me.  However I know that whenever you are trying to shift something about your way of being it is much more a case of gradually moving toward a new way of being than just flicking a switch and ‘dada’ suddenly you have the ease and grace of the Dalai Lama. Nup, it’s a lifelong endeavor! Sometimes one step forward, two steps backward.  But as with everything you aspire to achieve in your life, the most important thing is not how fast you are moving forward, but that you are moving in the right direction!

Good luck!