Here is something I published last week on the idea of skills being part of us regardless of the situation we find ourselves in.
Personality is extremely stable. (This does not mean we can never change. It’s just that changes are difficult. This fact is not as discouraging as you might think. People can still work on making minor changes which are achievable. These minor changes can sometimes produce large effects.)
Personality cannot be completely separated from the situation a person finds himself or herself in. For example, confidence in one domain (e.g., work) does not necessarily translate to confidence in another (e.g., love). Within a certain domain, however, the stable nature of the personality trait dominates.
That’s the point of the following column. People will often find themselves in new jobs, schools or cities, and feel totally isolated or out of place. I thought it was important to remind people that our skills don’t disappear when we change places. Whatever helped us succeed in the past will still be in us in the new situation.
Your skills are in you
(Source: Journal Métro Ces aptitudes qu’on oublie. September 23, 2008)Sometimes life comes at us quickly and in an unexpected fashion. Did you ever lose a job that you thought was secure? Did you ever change schools or move to a new city and find yourself with little support and surrounded by strangers? Did the break-up of a relationship leave you feeling that you will never find love again?
Every once in a while, we may have to rebuild certain parts of our lives from scratch. It is a daunting challenge to pick oneself up from the ground and face the world. People who lack confidence will see the challenge of rebuilding as almost insurmountable. They focus on the loss of the job or of the friends. When they look at their new situation, they tend to forget the skills that made them successful in the past.
On a new planet
If you had many friends on earth and were then mysteriously transported to a parallel planet where you knew no one, what do you think would happen? Wouldn’t the skills that helped you make friends on earth follow you to the new planet? Of course they would. Over time, you would slowly make new friends and find your old life again.The same goes for our lives here on earth. When we possess certain skills that make us successful professionally or socially, those skills will follow us to any new endeavours. Unless the world changes, the results won’t.
Lucky or good
Many people mistakenly assume that they are in good situations because things turned out pretty lucky for them. When they lose a job or a relationship, they often feel that their luck ran out. Those who believe this will have a hard time seeing a way out. They know that luck cannot always be counted on.In reality, though, luck often has little to do with it. Except for occasional lucky breaks here and there, a pattern of success is only possible when you are good. If you are a person who handled responsibilities well and was appreciated in a former job, the same will happen in the next one. If you are a person who made friends in your hometown, there is no reason you wouldn’t make many friends in your new city.
It isn’t a question of luck. It is a question of skills. And those skills are in you…no matter where you go.
Tagged as Adapting to change, personality.
Posted in Human nature, Life, Stress.
Posted on 05 Oct 2008
