The Sub-Factors of Independence

If you have read The Circle Blueprint or taken The Circle Blueprint Assessment, you know that Independence is composed of six separate sub-factors.  It is only by mastering each sub-factor that you will gain your full independence.  This brief description will orient you to each one.

Crisis Prone.  Perhaps you know someone who always seems to be in crisis.  It is almost as if the world is too difficult for them to handle or that they lack the skills to effectively run their life.  For these folks, crises can become an excuse for not taking responsibility to build an effective and independent life.  If they are going to become independent, they must first learn how to get their life in order.

Autonomy.  Autonomy is the ability to function on your own.  Those who haven’t mastered autonomy lean on others to do things they should be doing for themselves.  They might always be borrowing money rather than making their own living.  Or, they might be living at home when they should be out on their own.

Pleasing.  While there is nothing wrong with pleasing others, when you are pleasing others at the cost of being yourself, something is wrong.  Pleasing can easily become a way of winning over others but doing so by becoming what others want you to be rather than by expressing your uniqueness.

Pretentiousness.  Pretentiousness is pretending to be what you are not rather than admitting who you are.  The problem with pretentiousness is that it become easy to believe your stories about yourself are the truth about who you are.  You are actually hiding that which is special about you behind a lie.

Reliance.  Another word for reliance is dependence.  If you haven’t mastered reliance you may find yourself depending too much on what your friends think of you and not enough on what you think of yourself.  You may find yourself sucking up to your boss or teacher because their goodwill seems important to your success.

Personal commitment.  Personal commitment speaks to your ability to take responsibility for things and to live up to your word.  People who lack this skill tend to make a lot of excuses for themselves and are constantly under-performing.

Hopefully, you will begin to evaluate yourself on each of these six sub-factors and determining which is the most important for you to master first.