Life Coaches Blog

Stop. Before you continue reading, you must answer these 2 questions to get the most out of this post:

1) Who is someone you admire? What is it about him/her that you admire the most?

2) Who is someone you hate? What is it about him/her that you hate the most?

Think about your answers and you might learn something important about yourself.

Done? I’m going to suggest something crazy. I’m going to suggest that what you admire about this person is something you admire about yourself, and what you hate about the other person is something you hate about yourself.

You Are Who You Think You’re Not

Psychological projection is a defense mechanism in which one attributes to others one’s own unacceptable or unwanted thoughts and emotions, which can include both positive and negative qualities.

Why do we do this?

Generally we project negative qualities because we don’t want to take responsibility for them; there’s no way I could have thought that, it must be all his doing. We project positive qualities because we don’t want to take ownership of them; I can’t be that talented but I know she definitely is.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”

~Marianne Williamson

Someone who doesn’t consciously want to admit that he can’t be honest, might find someone to project onto and says that person is dishonest. He might even wake up one day to find out that most people in his life are dishonest and not know why, without taking a good look in the mirror first.

Another person might be attracted to someone and think that he’s brilliant, whereas she isn’t - so she doesn’t feel like she could talk to him. The truth is that her own insecurity stops her from owning the brilliance she has that she’s projected onto him.

When you walk past a mountain and stop in awe at the magnificence you see, a part of you is projecting your own magnificence onto it. Grandiose as it sounds, a cat could walk past and all that cat sees is a large piece of rock. Where else does that magnificence come from?

In both cases of projection, neither is healthy because it stops us from seeing the truth about ourselves: the weaknesses we need to work on and the strengths we need to recognize. Projection is defensive because while we might recognize these positive and negative traits unconsciously, the conscious parts of ourselves don’t want to have to deal with them right now.

Both types of projection weaken us by taking away our power; taken to an extreme we find ourselves blaming others for our faults and giving too much power to others.

So what do we do to stop our personal power from leaking?

5 Steps to Take Your Personal Power Back

The Ancient Greek aphorism gnothi seauton says: ‘Know Thyself’ (and thou shall know all the mysteries of the gods and of the universe).

1) The first step is to become aware that this is something you do.

2) The second step is to accept that you do it.

3) The third step is to recognize which issues you’re projecting onto others.

4) The fourth step is to take responsibility for the projection and accept it as your own, whether fault or strength.

5) The fifth step is to use your continuing awareness to integrate this strength into your everyday thoughts and actions or to work at overcoming this weakness in your everyday life.

These 5 steps will help you grow in awareness and personal strength.

A Word of Warning

Some say that ‘everything is projection’, but I’ve seen that there’s a point where analysis becomes paralysis and you want to stop yourself before you reach that point.

Reflecting on your actions to gain in self-knowledge and personal power is one thing, spending your time in endless navel-gazing at the expense of results is another. A dynamic self-awareness is more important when using this technique than blind belief in it, and a healthy ability to take responsibility for what you can, do rather than blame yourself for what you can’t change, will only add to your personal power.

In other words, don’t go crazy seeing projection everywhere, don’t knock yourself when you do see it, use it as a tool for growth rather than blame and make it a useful tool in your personal development.

Gnothi seauton.