The summer holidays have been for a little while now. Did you get the rest you wanted? Were you refreshed and have you been able to keep that tranquility in place? Or are you tired again and do you feel like you could use a few more free weeks? I’ve already written about the five driving motives we use to survive. These motives are rooted in our education; the family and culture we grew up in.
They were important life lessons that during our childhood told us how to live, how to be ‘OK’. Often we still want to live according to these old life lessons at all cost, even though we have pay a high price for it. We develop an internal slave driver and make our real needs subordinate to these guidelines.
These 5 drivers are:
- Be strong and work hard
- Be perfect
- Do the other a favour
- Do your best
- Hurry up
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By living according to these motives, you ask a lot of yourself. You impose high demands on yourself, because that’s what you’re supposed to do. And so it happens that you create too many obligations for yourself, even during your holidays. You are going to parties because you don’t want to reject an invitation, you help friends to move and do other things that you do not really want to do. You surpass your own need for rest because you have to meet those driving motives. In the end you are disappointed because you are still tired after your holidays!
This is not right!
You shouldn’t be coming home from your vacation feeling tired! You should feel refreshed. That you’re tired soon after a holiday isn’t right either! By recognising your own patterns you can gain more influence over them. TA offers a nice model for that: the Miniscript.
This pattern can be split into 4 steps. It helps you identify your own patterns:
- (Slave) Driver
You become your own (slave) driver. To see yourself as OK, you must comply with your self-imposed conditions. Holding up driving motivations brings you satisfaction and compliments.
- Stopper
In order to meet all the requirements you set for yourself, you need to sacrifice something that’s important to you. There’s hardly any time left to rest. Also, you do not make a lot of time for your loved ones. Your battery doesn’t get charged, you do not have enough time for intimacy. In fact, you stop feeling what you really need.
- Accuser
Because you put such high demands on yourself, you feel tired and depressed. Instead of realising that you are largely responsible for your own unsatisfied feeling, you blame others for it. You say things like “You never have time for me.” Or “I have to do everything by myself around here.”
- Desperate
You don’t manage to meet your own requirements, which makes you feel hopeless and suffocated. You no longer see a solution. You feel guilty because you’re not happy and ‘you should appreciate with what you have’. Because you crave satisfaction and compliments, you’re going to do those things that make you feel better instantly: hard work, doing favours for others, etc.
And so you end up back at step 1. You become your own (slave) driver . To see yourself as OK, you must comply to your self-imposed conditions. You are satisfied by the compliments that you receive and because you are holding up your driving motivations.
And so you live in a vicious circle ….
It’s not really so that you ‘end up’ in this vicious circle. The circle is the result of choices you make.
It’s not my fault
Often it is difficult to recognise this process and to see your own share in it. That’s why we often blame someone else. You give your partner a hard time because they don’t make you happy. Or you’re unfriendly to your clients, because they keep giving you more work to do!
It’s not your fault, but your responsibility!
TA provides not only the model to recognise your patterns, but a solution too. It is important to become aware of what your internal slave driver is. If you also learn to think about the needs you are setting aside to live this way, you’re taking a big step in the right direction.
Be aware of your needs and give them space in your life. This will initially make you feel guilty, because you’re breaking with a pattern that you’ve been following for a long time. If you force yourself to go to sleep when there is still work to be done, you will lie awake at the beginning, it will provoke feelings of guilt. Only when you learn about these feelings can you break through patterns! Then you will be able to really take your rest when you go to bed!
Would you like to stay refreshed —for a longer time— after the holidays are over, from now on?
Did the holidays bring you what you wanted? Can you hold on to that feeling? Or are you tired again? Were you able to hold on to that satisfied feeling or are you already feeling guilty about this and that again.
TA provides tools that make you aware of your own patterns and also allow you to change them. You can also use TA when guiding others in this process, for example, clients in your coaching practice or the employees in the team you are leading. Do you want to learn how TA can help you and others? Then sign up for the Foundation Training. Then you will learn to recognise and apply many other models. The first classes start again on September 29, 2017. Do you already know a lot about TA and would you like to further explore the possibilities it offers to help yourself and your clients? Then, the TA Master’s program, TA’s further education is a better choice for you.
You are welcome to join!