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Introspection – Powerful Stuff
Wednesday, October 7, 2009 In my last post, I mentioned I’d been doing a lot of introspective thinking lately but what I didn’t mention is that I’ve had help with that. My friends at Whakate sent me an advance copy of their Introspection Handbook and I have been putting it to good use.
The book (published as a PDF) has an accompanying workbook. The two artifacts work together to guide you through a process that takes you through various aspects of your life experiences, attitudes, and what not.
You start with the ever-popular Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test to get a better feel for how you’re wired (Whakate has an online version of this test to get you going). There are also some in-depth materials about your type – very helpful whether you’ve done the MBTI before, or not.
As you go through the book, you are encouraged to analyze your thoughts around different scenarios to help you figure out what’s working and what’s not in each area. They may be a little tough to see on the diagram at right but the areas are:
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As you can see, “You” are at the center and this book is about helping you understand yourself better and getting more deliberate about how you live your life and influence the world. As my wife often says, “You need to teach people how they should treat you.” This book will help you in that journey.
I must say, the results I’m getting are better than I expected. I am also finding some things I don’t really like about how I’ve done things in the past, and am working to improve myself so I get better at them in the future. Not a bad outcome from a book, eh?
If you’ve been avoiding that objective look in the mirror or you want to spend more time analyzing how you’ve gotten where you are, I highly recommend this book.
By the way, it helps to set aside some “quality time” and put yourself in the right frame of mind to get the most out of this book. When I first read it, the book didn’t really resonate with me as much. However, I revisited it following a disappointing setback and found it to be just what I needed.
Reader Comments (4)
Dwayne. Follow your posts with interest, but this is particularly interesting, as I think changes to the web are forcing us all to look at how we interact with others, and hence are we are ourselves. Regards Mark
Thanks, Mark - I agree. The whole nature of how I keep in touch with people I know is changing. I think I interact with my parents much more than I would otherwise, through the help of Facebook, for example. They live 2500 miles from us so that's a very good thing.
And thanks for the feedback - I'm glad someone is reading this stuff ;^)
Great stuff, Dwayne. I'm not all that into self-inspection but must say this was worth the read. The bonus: The Whatkate website is really good with,a mong many other thoughtful psots, a most excellent review of GTD. Lots of other good stuff there too. Thanks for the post. -sam c
Complementary tools to better understand oneself in relationship with others are M. Buckingham's strengths finder + M. Seligman's concrete suggestions for becoming more optimistic in Learned Optimism. This post was very helpful for me. Thanks