My Ranked Values

I can't remember what site I pulled this survey from, but for the purpose of trying to understand myself better I attempted to put the following values in order of preference. It's tricky when they're all really important! This is where I'm at:

Enjoyment

To enjoy my work. To have fun doing it.

Friendship

To work with people I respect and to be respected by them

Family

To have time with my family

Personal Accomplishment

To achieve significant goals. To be involved in undertakings I believe personally are significant - whether or not they bring me recognition from others.

Expertness

To become a known and respected authority in what I do.

Prestige

To be seen by others as successful. To become well known. To obtain recognition and status in my chosen field.

Wisdom

To grow in understanding of myself, my personal calling and life's real purpose. To grow in knowledge and practice my religious beliefs. To discern and do the will of God and find lasting meaning in what I do.

Independence

To have freedom of thought and action. To be able to act in terms of my own time

schedules and priorities.

Personal Development

To learn and to do challenging work that will help me grow, that will allow me to utilize my best talents and mature as a human being.

Integrity

To live and work in compliance with my personal moral standards. To be honest and acknowledge/stand up for my personal beliefs.

Creativity

To be innovative. To create new and better ways of doing things.

Security

To have a steady income that fully meets my family's basic needs.

Wealth

To earn a great deal of money (i.e., well beyond my family's basic needs). To be financially independent.

Health

To be physically and mentally fit.

Loyalty

To be committed to the goals of a group of people who share my beliefs, values and ethical principles.

Leadership

To motivate and energize other people. To feel responsible for identifying and

accomplishing needed group tasks.

Service

To contribute to the well-being and satisfaction of others. To help people who need help and improve society.

Community

To be deeply involved with a group that has a larger purpose beyond one's self. To perform in effective and caring teamwork.

Location

To be able to live where I want to live.

Power

To have the authority to approve or disapprove proposed courses of action. To make assignments and control allocation of people and resources. 

Mini Conclusion - Enjoyment at #1?

It's funny how I put enjoyment at the top, and then when I look at my current, or even past situation I'm typically always doing things I like, even if they are destructive to my overall well-being! I might be tired and need to sleep, hungry and need to eat, I might have work that needs doing or an appointment that needs to be attended, but you know what takes priority? A box set TV series I wanna watch, and Xbox game I wanna play or some sites I wanna visit on the internet! There's nothing wrong with those things, but it's clear my sense of moderation and balance is completely screwed! I know I'm not alone. Millions of people "should" be out fixing their homes or at the gym sculpting their physique, but instead are watching TV, having pointless gossiping sessions with their friends or just wanking off to porn!

I definitely need to work on my sense of balance by getting my priorities straight. This is tough. There is no magic pill to suddenly reverse my thinking. I can't instantly like the thought of working hard when I associate it with the years of abusing or negative self-talk: 

* Telling myself it's hard, it hurts

* It's a waste of time

* I'm not doing it right/well enough and this makes me feel inferior

* I've not done it as well as other people and so I'm a failure

* It's generally something shit taking up time which I could be using to do something fun!

The right idea is to be fully aware of and believing in to the positive aspects of work and then to consciously focus on them. So:

* This is working towards my long-term goals

* This will work towards putting me into better habits

* Without failure, I can't learn

* This will make me feel great for achieving something

* This will make me feel like a worthwhile part of society and human, instead of being an indulgent loser

I'll be honest- I still want to sit here all evening and be an indulgent loser rather than work on various projects, but at this stage, I just want to identify who I am and what I'm doing before trying to realign my values while I'm not I'm ready.

Wouldn't it be great if I could find a way to enjoy the things I need to do instead of endure them?

I do think it may be possible to think of 'going to the gym' or 'tackling a difficult work project' while feeling the same sense of ease I get watching late night tv or the same sense of excitement from playing a great video game I'm hooked on! It's probably a case of having the initial drive and then implementing some kind of NLP/CBT techniques? Its something I'd like to look in to.

Limiting Forum Time

I love internet Forums- If its on a topic I'm interested in I could literally read other people's comments and opinions for days on end and sometimes I do! While this is fun and educational, it can suck away massive amounts of time I could be using to be productive. Some simple tips I've decided to use from now on is:

• Know you can only devote a set amount of time to a forum and be conscious of the clock. For example, Limit forum browsing to up to an hour every other day. Feel free to finish browsing posts or commenting before the hour has finished.

• Focus only on topics which really interest you and try to ignore topics of partial interest.

• Don't waste time on long rant posts, especially if they're bitching about their  lives. While the act of giving/listening and being empathetic is important, remember I've got my own problems I need to sort out first, rather than try to offer advice or support to others. Instead look for posts which will positively benefit my life.

• Avoid topics and conversations with several pages of replies and instead stick to reading topics with up to 1 page of responses.

Well-being advice

Saw this on the NHS website and thought I'd paste it into a blog post as a reminder of the ways in which I should be living my life for optimal well-being. I've read these tips 100s of times in various books and websites, but never hurts to be reminded of them...

National research has identified five ways to wellbeing, which if built into our everyday lives, help to improve our wellbeing and reduce our risk of anxiety and depression. They are the mental health equivalent of eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day.
Source: Foresight Mental Capital and Wellbeing Project, 2008

1. Connect
With the people around you. With family, friends, colleagues and neighbours. At home, work, school or in your local community.
Think of these as the cornerstones of your life and invest time in developing them. Building these connections will support and enrich you every day.

2. Be active
Go for a walk or run. Step outside. Cycle. Play a game. Garden. Dance.
Exercising makes you feel good. Most importantly, discover a physical activity you enjoy; one that suits your level of mobility and fitness.

3. Take notice
Be curious. Catch sight of the beautiful. Remark on the unusual. Notice the changing seasons. Savour the moment, whether you are on a train, eating lunch or talking to friends.
Be aware of the world around you and what you are feeling. Reflecting on your experiences will help you appreciate what matters to you.

4. Keep learning
Try something new. Rediscover an old interest. Sign up for that course. Take on a different responsibility at work. Fix a bike. Learn to play an instrument or how to cook your favourite food.
Set a challenge you will enjoy achieving. Learning new things will make you more confident, as well as being fun to do.

5. Give
Do something nice for someone. Thank someone. Smile. Volunteer your time. Join a community group. Look out, as well as in.
Seeing yourself, and your happiness, linked to the wider community can be incredibly rewarding and will create connections with the people around you.

Creating a Key.. or Just use Labels?

As part of my organizational obsession, I thought about adding a symbol to Blog titles to help in navigating them at a later date.

For example:

[+] = positive action taken
[-] = Rant/lack of progress
[L] = Something I've learned or concluded from a failure or success. Or general insight and discovery.
[T] = A task or action identified which I need to take in order to progress or will take shortly
[*] # = Mood, preceded by a number from 1-10 (an existing symbol I use on a different Blog)
[A] = Advice or tips for other people
[£] = Finance, work or money related
[R] = Relationship related

Thinking about it, I guess that's what tags/labels are for! So maybe instead, insert these tags into each of my posts in addition to the subject related tag/s:

Positive Action
Rant
Discovery
To do
Mood
Advice
Work
Relationships

Friendship Feelers on Forums

How do I go from having few friends and  feeling socially isolated to feeling socially abundant and comfortable with a cool group of people who accept my current shortcomings and want to hook up with someone similar?

I decided to put out a few feelers on depression and social anxiety based forums as that's where I'm at right now and perhaps there would be others there who want to join me in a combined mission to improve our lives? I posted the following Thread:

Attempting to turn my life around for the better

I'm a 29 year old guy living in the sunny old south east of England. I'm a bright, considerate, nice guy who's been seriously held back in life by bouts of depression and social anxiety.
I've read a lot of stories on this forum and can totally relate. I often feel totally consumed by negative thoughts and I'm determined to turn that around and work towards developing positive thinking habits. I appreciate that's easier said than done, but have at times experienced short-lived positive thoughts, so at least know it is possible to feel good! I realize I desperately need to develop a strategy and physical habits to change my mind set.

At this moment in time I'm very isolated; jobless and have been for most of my life and without a parter or friends I can call on. My ambition is to eventually be successful in my work life and relationships and realize this process will take years of effort. One big thing I realize I need is social contact- people to talk to discuss problems but also want to work towards solutions.
I've always thought it would be great to meet up with similar people who are fed up with living a depressing life and being stuck in a rut and want to work on turning things around. If there's anyone here who'd like to hook up, potentially develop a friendship and give each other support to achieving success in our lives or can suggest groups I could join to find like-minded people that would be really appreciated.

Thanks for reading :)

I wonder if it's quite a cold, desperate way of going about the process of trying to cultivate relationships with other people, so my objective might not work. But then again, just maybe there will be someone who's been waiting for a forum member to take the initiative to post up such a request? I don't want to sit on my butt waiting several months, or even years to begin cultivating friendships!

I could try posting this on personal development or self improvement forums next as I suspect most people on a typical depression or anxiety forum are too caught up in their own misery and worries to put themselves forward. I've been there and unfortunately might even go back there myself in the future, so I wouldn't blame anyone for thinking I'm intruding in their world.

I realize the 'normal' route to meeting people would be dating sites, sports clubs or hobby classes, although those things can be a pretty big strain for me as I'd feel the need to act confident and assertive from the offset, when instead I'd rather hook up with someone like me who is also starting off at the bottom and wants to give and be given support in pushing themselves to be assertive and act confident in new situations.

To sum up: I am hoping to find a transformation support buddy from this!


[Note: it took 5 hours to sign up to 8 forums and post my thread! I thought it'd only take an hour]

This Blogs Purpose

...I need to get this clear in my head before I post more, I think :D

Primary: 

I want to personally track my progress as I strive to better my own life, so have created this blog as a means to do that- recording my progress, success, failures and discoveries.

Secondary:

Share my experiences with other people. Maybe get feedback from comments.

Additional:

I don't really want to monetise it as I feel it would cheapen what I'm trying to do here, but increasing my income is part of my master plan, so I guess it would be fine to get adsense clicks if I am to post stuff which is pretty useful to people. But then, do I want to write this blog for myself or others? Or both? I guess write this for myself mainly, then reassess later down the line.

I want to try to leave out petty day to day feelings. I've kept a separate, main, personal journal for several years and can continue to keep one for those kinds of things...

Although do I really want 4 separate blogs and journals? In addition to this one I've got: my:
* Private Journal/Diary which I use for voicing my thoughts and usually bitching about life!
* Private daily tasks Blog for the purpose of recording what I'm doing with my days in short bullet points.
* Private Positive Blog, which I occasionally remember to record positive things I did in my day or have achieved recently.
* Plus I have several separate documents detailing specific facets of my personality or longer articles/mini essays I've written which seem too profound to include within my daily bitchings etc!

I guess I record a lot of thoughts and a wide range of self discoveries and trying to organize it all is in itself a mammoth project! Perhaps I should just have one place to record all this stuff, like a dedicated, organized website I use which mixes public and private content? And then I would need to find a way to regularly back it all up locally as I would not be happy if there was some kind of web server crash and I lost my life's work so to speak! Keeping digital records of my life over the last 10 years or so has been a pretty big part of my life and don't think I will ever completely give it up, even if I was super happy and busy living life (which is kinda my big goal!). I would love to present my 'life data' as a kind of well constructed body of work and want this blog- my 'evolution as a person' to be part of that. I need to consider keeping a coherent system for blogging, organizing data, thoughts and writings which isn't going to suck away all my free time and not allow me to live the normal life I'm striving for.

Time constraints:

Further to what I was saying about recording lots of thoughts, I often wonder how I can do this effectively and consistently? I would ideally like to write my thoughts down on a weekly basis or perhaps every 3 days. This means I will need to set aside 30 mins - 2 hours (historically how long I spend on a post) but dont want blogging to become a chore. Also, I'm great at waffling- basically writing the thoughts that pop into my head as I sit here. I like waffling but this lack of consideration to the quality or preciseness of the content I'm writing makes it hard to stay on topic and time consuming to re-read at later dates! I question whether or not I even want to potentially spend 2-4 hours a week writing stuff down, when I realize that 'doing' and living life would be more productive towards my goals rather than 'wasting time' by recording my past from the last few days. I guess if I did find it a waste, I'd just not do it for however long and not stress over potential long gaps between posts.

Creating an accurate representation of my life:

One's life can only be described as one's perception of it and does not represent fact. With this in mind, how can I record progress I'm making if I'm in a depressed mood where everything seems shit? I could win gold at the Olympics or score with a super model but if my thoughts are clouded with negativity, I wont see these things an achievements and positive progress. Instead, I'll think something along the lines of: "I only got gold because the others in the race had a bad day, and who cares about a stupid medal anyway". And so I may not notice it's a successful result worth recording. I guess we will see if I can go from a stage of not noticing positive successes to being aware and proud of them on a more regular basis.

Conclusion:

Note to self: read the words under the 'Primary' heading, and dont stress the rest.. for now :D

Life Tip

Efficiency with tasks is fine. BUT take time with people.

- Rule from 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Increasing Efficiency

Another week rushed by. I assume this is mostly just due down to ageing- the older one gets, the quicker one's life passes. Scary! Scary thoughts are things I'm trying to avoid, so wont contemplate this time passing issue again. Instead I'll think about how I can pack more into my week. So, how does one guy go about doing this and without making detrimental sacrifices? I'm just one person without any support so can't ask my team or friends for help in speeding up my achieving efficiency . Unless of course I could create a team or develop friendships for this?

I read articles in magazines and blogs and extracted a few tips like how to plan your days, organizing, only devoting so much time to certain tasks before moving on to the next one and cutting down on perfectionism.
My own favourite Efficiency self discoveries so far:

• Research how to be efficient: It cuts into your day to start with, but the benefits have a lasting impact for a lifetime to come. A newly discovered efficiency routine must be implemented of course!
• Kill two birds with one stone: Listen to an audio book while the gym or or eat while browsing the internet.
• Rush: Remind myself to act as though every task within a day has a tight deadline. (Has proven tough to maintain)
• Plan your movements: Make sure I'm completely finished in one area of the room/house/city before moving to save going back and forth several times and be conscious of the quickest way to go from one place to another.

Untested/difficult Efficiency ideas:

• Learn from others: Spend time with others to discovery how they do things quicker than you.
• Learn to read and write quicker: Despite having been using a computer most days for the last 12 or 13 years, I've never learned to touch type or speed-read.
• Pay for time: Sometimes its quicker/more cost effective to pay someone to clean your car than take an hour off work whereby you would earn double the cost of a car clean if you stayed there. Although cleaning a car or doing any chore can deliver other benefits- form of exercise, sense of achievement, so must be considered carefully.
• Healthy lifestyle: More energy to increase productivity

As a healthy lifestyle is one of my transformation goals anyway, I will get to test this one out. Eating at regular intervals- small meals every 2-3 hours should, according to all the theory, increase energy levels. For me, this will be a challenge, but also a habit I'd like to get in to, and one I will start to cultivate from now on!

SLOAN/ Global 5 / Big 5 - RLOEI

Big Five Test Results:

Extroversion                 ||||||        26%

Orderliness                   |||||||||||||||| 68%

Emotional Stability        ||||||        22%

Accommodation            ||||||        24%

Inquisitiveness              |||||||||||||||| 62%

The Big Five is currently the most accepted personality model in the scientific community. The Big Five emerged from the work of multiple independent scientists/researchers starting in the 1950s who using different techniques obtained similar results. Those results were that there are five distinct personality traits/dimensions. Here are your results on each dimension:

Extroversion results were low which suggests you are very reclusive, quiet, unassertive, and private.

Orderliness results were moderately high which suggests you are, at times, overly organized, neat, structured and restrained at the expense too often of flexibility, variety, spontaneity, and fun.

Emotional Stability results were low which suggests you are very worrying, insecure, emotional, and anxious.

Accommodation results were low which suggests you are overly selfish, uncooperative, and difficult at the expense too often of the well being of others.

Inquisitiveness results were moderately high which suggests you are intellectual, curious, imaginative but possibly not very practical.

Your Global5/SLOAN type is RLOEI

Your Primary type is Limbic

Global 5: sloan RLOEI; sloan+ R|L|OEi; primary Limbic; R(74%)L(78%)O(68%)E(76%)I(62%)

“withdrawn, loner, moody, dislikes crowds, avoidant, not big on fun, socially unskilled, not that interested in others, overwhelmed by unpleasant feelings frequently, depressed, requires lots of time alone to recharge, socially awkward, hard to get to know, feels defective, averse to change, low self confidence, dislikes small talk, dislikes touchy feely types, private, not prone to complimenting others, driven by own personal gain, pessimistic, self absorbed, indifferent to the feelings of others, does not easily forgive, inflexible, skeptical, embarrassed easily, tense, lower energy level, attracted to things associated with sadness, very suspicious of others, does not believe in human goodness, interested in intellectual pursuits, does not put the welfare of others ahead of self, lonely, not known for generosity, unadventurous, doubting, quick to judge others, discontent, hard to understand, wounded at the core, believes in a logical answer for everything, worrying, uncooperative, agnostic/atheist tendencies, has anxiety, not physically affectionate with most people, feels second place is not good enough, frustrated when people don't live up to expectations - From SimilarMinds.com”

Great! I sound like a barrel of fun!

Mind you all the other descriptions weren’t particularly positive. But like always, the positive extroverts came out top. Lucky SOBs!

Neuroticism and it's effects on my life:

So I compared my results with those on the INTJ forum and while we all generally came out similar, there was one variable which fluctuated significantly- Emotional Stability. A reason I often find I can’t always relate to other INTJs, as well as being a little feely and quite perceiving is down to my negativity, neuroticism and anxiety!

It is, as I read, “the hidden injury”. I feel really upset when I think of just what I could have achieved if I was not plagued by a near constant feeling of worry. All these years of torture via constant unhappiness would have been gone. I would have been able to focus my time on productive things and have a social life rather than being put off by worries and fears. Who knows where I’d be with my life now? And I feel frustrated that I go through life without anyone knowing I have to live with a totally contaminated set of thoughts to most people, and even if they did know I’d get no sympathy or allowances. Perhaps that is why I can be so hard on other people- I have to live with depressive thoughts in my head EVERY DAY, so fuck you for wanting allowances for feeling under the weather, for breaking your arm, or for losing your leg!

How do I fix this? That is my mission.

Hearing Psychologists say their bit doesn’t help either!:

Daniel Nettle

High neuroticism scorers will always be vulnerable to negative thoughts and feelings. That they cannot change. However, there are techniques in which they can train themselves that seem to have quite a marked effect on how they deal with this vulnerability, which can make a great deal of difference to their being in the world

Timothy Pychyl:

While neurotics can learn to act out of character they can’t change their personalities.

That last statement sounds so true to me right now~ I’m went on a date today, acted relaxed, in control, assertive and pretty positive. Yet I felt none of those things on the inside. I told my date I don’t lie and this is me! It’s not. What I showed her was 25% me and 75% facade fabricated to not look like a complete loser, which is what I secretly am by most of society’s standards.

In some ways I’m not THAT bad- if I can go out and be 25% of the person I want to be, and at least I’m not in a psych hospital, or dead. When I’m engaged in something like a computer game or anime series I feel happy! It’s only after these things end that I have chance to reflect and worry that I’ve wasted my time or whatnot. But I don’t think I give myself enough credit. I have been SERIOUSLY ILL for a huge part of my life and have still soldiered on and even now I frantically search for an answer to my woes. I expect myself to not only be able to function and behave like normal people, but I expect to be considered better than most people, when perhaps I should be in a pysch hospital being looked after!

Enneagram Test Results

In addition to the MBTI I've been spending a lot of time recently trying to understand myself and personality. I took an Enneagram of Personality test which revealed the following stats:

Type 1 Perfectionism |||||||||||||||||| 71%

Type 2 Helpfulness |||||||||| 34%

Type 3 Image Focus |||||||||||||||| 62%

Type 4 Hypersensitivity |||||||||||||||| 67%

Type 5 Detachment |||||||||||||||||| 77%

Type 6 Anxiety |||||||||||||||||| 72%

Type 7 Adventurousness |||||| 24%

Type 8 Aggressiveness |||||| 24%

Type 9 Calmness |||||||||||| 45%

Type     score   type | behaviour | motivation

5          54        I must be knowledgeable and independent to be happy.

6           51        I must be secure and safe to be happy.

1           50        I must be perfect and good to be happy.

4           47        I must be unique/different to be happy.

3           44        I must be impressive and attractive to be happy.

9           32        I must maintian a peaceful and easygoing environment to be happy.

2          24        I must be helpful and caring to be happy.

7           17        I must be fun and entertained to be happy.

8          17        I must be strong and in control to be happy.

My three instincts in order are:

1.     Self-Preservation (SP) – The instinct to secure basic resources and meet the needs of material and physical survival.

2.     Social (SO) – The instinct to create lasting personal connections and secure one’s place in relationship to others.

3.     Sexual (SX) – The instinct to seek intense, stimulating intimate connections, sexual and otherwise.

Therefor: I am a 5 with a heavy 6 ‘wing’ and an SP/SO/SX Instinctual Stack.

Although on another test I was a 5 with a heavy 4 ‘wing’ (or 4 with a heavy 5 'wing'). See below results. Like most personality tests, they're never perfect.

Score   Type

4          Type 1: The Reformer. The rational, idealistic type.
1          Type 2: The Helper. The caring, nurturing type.
4          Type 3: The Motivator. The adaptable, success-oriented type.
7          Type 4: The Artist. The intuitive, reserved type.
7          Type 5: The Thinker. The perceptive, cerebral type.
5          Type 6: The Skeptic. The committed, security-oriented type.
4          Type 7: The Generalist. The enthusiastic, productive type.
0          Type 8: The Leader. The powerful, aggressive type.
4          Type 9: The Peacemaker. The easygoing, accommodating type.

So I'm "The thinking artist!" Lol. I’d agree with that! Apparently I need to balance out myself with more Type 8 traits and the fact I scored 0 for that type could explain my depression? If I was more assertive, allow myself to enjoy life, support those close to me, be a leader then perhaps I would be happier?

The test seems to allow more diversity than the MBTI and touches on facets like sexual instinct. One point about personality tests: Its very difficult to answer these kinda tests truthfully. Most people don't know themselves well enough or put what they think they should rather than what is true. I've sat down with family who who answer questions completely differently to how the rest of us know them to be.

Getting a set of questions which does not discriminate or make them feel bad for answering is key. Although I'm an INTJ, I don't like admitting I have preferences towards things which society deems as negative, like being too nerdy. Not a problem is you are confident in your skin, but not all of us are and don't like to admit the truth about themselves.