The 4 Styles of Personal Growth: Relationships Between The Styles

This is a followup post to Choose Your Own Path: The 4 Different Styles of Personal Growth. The post has resonated surprisingly well, so I decided to write a follow-up series. A link to the original article can be found here.

While the 4 styles are all different, some of them are closer together than others. Progressionists and researchers are left-brained, whereas intuitive and self-centered people are primarily right-brained in their approach. Thus, progressionists are also likely to be researchers, and vice-versa, whereas intuitives are likely to also be self-trusting. (and vice versa)

One thing that might be hard for some readers to understand is intuition vs. self-trust. (astute readers will note that I changed 'self-centered' to 'self-trust'. This is because I believe it's both clearer, and executes the point better.) Intuition involves doing what you feel you should do: using your feelings as a roadmap, effectively. You don't make plans (unless, like many, you're not purely intuitive) and you let your subconscious guide you along.

In contrast, the self-trust path involves making plans, and setting goals, but listening to your gut during the planning stage. If something feels right, the self-truster will then make a plan for it, but if it seems wrong, they will simply not do it, even if they think it's the right thing. If they think it's the right think, they may work through the feelings to find the true issue, but rarely will they go against them directly.

Finally, the hardest thing to understand is a progression / intuitive person. How could this be possible? While rare, what this involves is generally, for a progressive / intuitive, using one's subconscious, rather than logic, to determine what goals to actually set, and for an intuitive / progressive, their intuition will usually lead them to take clearly defined steps which they can later look back on.

From this point on in the series, I shall refer to the four paths as such:

P = Progressive

I = Intuitive

R = Researcher

S = Self-Trust

As an example of the difference between P/I and I/P, let's take vegetarianism. Both people wish to do it.

The P/I will ask themselves 'What do I do next' and will receive some sort of sign to eliminate meat from their diet. They set a goal to do so for 30 days, and succeed. They then ask themselves whether or not to shift back, and receive a confirmation from the universe not to. Goal succeeded.

The I/P will ask themselves 'What do I do next' and will receive some sort of sign to eliminate meat from their diet. They do so, feeling no resistance from their intuition, and after a few weeks, they look back, and can see the benefits of being vegetarian. Both halves agree to continue. Goal succeeded.

While the two are similar, they do differ in some ways. This is very similar to the difference between R/S and S/R.

A note: For this series, I cannot avoid generalisations. It may be that you cannot actually be categorised under this system at all, or act differently than your profile states you will. That's fine. Everyone has their own path.

Over the next few days, I'll be writing four posts, exploring each profile in depth, including each secondary path, as well as tips on where to grow, and how to shift alignment when necessary.

Until next time, may you see the interconnectedness of all things.