| “Why does this always happen to me?” and “Why can’t I just be different, even when I want to be?” are two Whys that are familiar to us all. Answering those Whys and then being able do something about them, to change in ways we need to change, can spell the difference between creating the life we want or experiencing “lives of quiet desperation.”
The Whys arise from our biological/psychological need for a “steady state.” We need stability, a steady state, in all things to function well. This steady state is more a part of us than we recognize. This steady state is a major factor in how we exist. That we are steady-state dependent organisms effects our physiology and creates our habits. Vary much beyond 98.6 degrees and we humans don’t do well. Try to change old habits, and you find that it takes concerted and prolonged effort. Slipping back into old habits is something we’ve all dealt with, even when we’ve tried to be different.
This steady state strongly permeates every aspect of who we are and how we act. The part of this steady-state mechanism that controls our thoughts and behavior, our interactions and our ability to achieve what we want from our lives, is what I have come to call the Personal BluePrint.
Your Personal BluePrint is your experience of your Self. It is your internal Self-picture and pervasive Self-experience. Your Personal BluePrint determines the extent to which you achieve the comfort of attachment, the validation of competency, and the experience of personal wholeness. These three experiences are the ultimate goals of a healthy Personal BluePrint and a healthy life.
What maintains our Personal BluePrints occurs partly internally in how we perceive and process information and emotions, and partly externally from interactions with others. No matter how intelligent, logical, and rational we are, we misperceive some situations in patterned ways that are unique to us, thus in ways that maintain our unique Personal BluePrints. We also manage or mismanage what I have found to be the 6 Core Interpersonal Competencies in unique ways that maintain our unique Personal BluePrints when interacting with others.
Our history becomes our present, and our present becomes our future without great effort at change. That is the steady state of our lives. Once our Personal BluePrint is formed and set, we all create a life that is consistent with how we feel about ourselves at the deepest level, a life consistent with our Personal BluePrint.
What can be done to change our Personal BluePrint? When we know our Personal BluePrints and its secrets are unraveled, we understand the game life has chosen us to play, the rules to the game, which behaviors win and which lose, and we have conscious choices, instead of simply going through the same Whys over and over…
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