- Jonn Kares
5 Ways to Think About Self-Agility
"The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” – Alan Watts
People can find it difficult knowing how Self-Agility applies in everyday life.
Here's a way to help you make it a recognizable daily experience.
Self-Agility can be viewed from these five ways of thinking about it:
① Self-Awareness Agility Self-awareness is often described as knowledge of your strengths and weaknesses which are presumed to be fixed and hard-wired at birth. But our self-identities are made of neuroplasticity just as our brains are. Your self-identity changes, and can be made to change, as you take charge of who you think you are. There is always a choice of how to respond to how you want to show up. The purpose of self-reflection is to listen for hints about who you want to be next.
② Change Agility What’s most disturbing about change is, no matter how much you try to make it this way, it has no beginning, middle and end. Change only hurts when you resist it, when you want to hang onto the thing being pushed out. Change becomes a lot easier when you make the effort to get to know the new thing coming into awareness. Also making it easier is recognizing your capability to initiate change, and not just always be at the effect of it.
③ Results Agility Sometimes things go smoothly and according to plan, and sometimes they don’t. Because the road from here to there is never a straight line. While on the journey, how to arrive at the destination is subject to change and adjustment. Ultimately getting there might require repeated reaffirmation and adjustment of intentions. This means UNlearning what was learned during the “terrible twos” of infant childhood trauma that the universe is working against us, and growing up to allow the possibility that we can actually get what we want. Being willing as circumstances change to be flexible with intended results, and how they are achieved, is a source of strength, not a demonstration of weakness of your convictions.
④ Mental Agility Being smart isn’t about what you already know, but rather your willingness to find out something new. An open flexible curious mind is always making fresh thought/idea connections by seeking out, inviting and welcoming uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity to discover what riches they might hold. Mental agility happens when you are open to discovering what to do when you don’t know what to do, by experimenting and embracing trial and error (learning only comes from the error part).
⑤ People Agility It’s tempting to give up on others because the situation is not ideal. But great relationships aren't great because they have no problems. They're great because both people care enough about the other person to find a way to make it work. Which can result in previously unimagined new ways emerging of where you both want to go, and new ways being discovered of how to get there together.
When you consider Self-Agility from these five view points what examples from your daily life come to mind?
Self-Agility is simply exercising the discipline of taking charge of personal certainty by allowing that certainty to always be free to change.