Article
# 3
The
Elements of Power™
Across disciplines
and cultures we repeatedly find some fundamental elements that
represent human qualities, behavioral options, and practices for
development. These Elements of Power represent options
for effective action across domains (e.g., leadership, career
development, team building, athletic activity), and link to personal
development through modern and traditional psychological practices.
The Elements
of Power address the roles of:: Attention-Energy,
Intent,
Openness, Ground, Heart, Perspective and Action.
From the perspective
of personal mastery, the core practices include taking personal
responsibility, managing our attention and energy, and recognition
of the power of habit in our lives. Our habits or habitual identifications
(of which personality is a particularly broad set), lead to a
restriction of the perceptual-cognitive-behavioral options that
can lead to effectiveness in different arenas (leadership, career,
athletic activity).
Why do we
care about personality style? There are many good reasons for
understanding your own style and that of others.
In the context
of personal and professional mastery, knowing our personality
style or personality type gives us insight into our habits of
perceiving, evaluating, and behaving. Personality type in and
of itself is not a measure of potential in any given arena (e.g.,
knowing one’s type doesn’t say whether or not one
will be an effective leader, or a skillful negotiator). In the
Elements
of Power
paradigm we see how personality type can inform us about our approach
to the elements that are an essential part of successful practice
in any domain.
The practices
for personal mastery are the same wherever we
find ourselves - we develop a set of attitudes that remind us
to take responsibility, to manage our attention and energy, and
to be aware of our habits. In doing so we wake up to our inherent
freedom. We develop personal power as we remember to draw on the
elements of intent and openness, ground, heart, perspective, and
action.
- Attention-Energy
- Awareness of and responsibility for habits of attention and
energy use
- Intent
- Proactive consistent focus on what you want to build or create,
alignment of resources
- Openness
- Being open to outcome, observation without evaluation, acceptance
of what is
- Ground
- Skills in returning to the relaxed energy and here and now
of your body
- Heart
- Remembering what's really important to you, your values and
purpose
- Perspective
- Understanding the role of belief, self-talk and images in
one's life
- Action
- Engaging the power of concrete physical action
