At the end of 2024, I set an ambitious goal: publish one post per week on the Personality Dimensions® blog. I knew I’d get some help from facilitators who would contribute great content, but I was still facing a lot of work.
We’re now about two-thirds of the way through the year, and it’s been going great. I’ll admit, some posts have gone up right at my self-imposed deadline—and occasionally an hour or two over—but they’ve always landed. The feedback has been incredibly validating and keeps me going.
…until today. When an idea hits me, I sit down and write. If I can’t do it in the moment, I write down all my ideas, intros, jokes, or sentences I want to incorporate in a notebook, and come back to it later. Some of my best performing posts started with ideas that came to me in the middle of the night. Flipping though my notebook, I realized I had nothing I could use this week. I have a few ideas in the works, but they need a little research first. As I sat staring at the wall where my liberal arts degree is hanging, I started thinking about all those random courses I took on philosophy and pop-culture that left my parents completely baffled. Then it hit me; if all else fails, go meta.
If you write regularly, you start to notice that a quality work doesn’t come from just one corner of your mind. It’s more like a committee meeting with all four of your personality dimensions sitting around a plaid table. Each one has a role, and when the balance is right, the whole process runs smoothly. But when writer’s block turns off the lights and slams the door shut, it’s usually because one of them has pushed back from the table and stopped contributing.
When my writing stalls, sometimes it’s because my Organized Gold is getting in the way. It loves an outline, insists on order, and won’t rest until every comma is in its proper place. It’s great for keeping things polished, but it can also grind everything to a halt when perfectionism creeps in. If I let it take over, I’ll spend more time reorganizing my notes than actually writing. What helps is giving my Organized Gold a small, specific task like sketching a quick outline or tackling one rough section, so it feels secure enough to let the words start moving.
The Inquiring Green in me has its own ways of grinding things to a halt. It wants facts, context, and the big idea that ties everything together; if it doesn’t have enough to work with, it loses interest fast. The cure is usually feeding it something new to think about, like a quick article, a podcast, even a random pick on Netflix. Once my Inquiring Green spots a fresh angle or connection, the writing picks up momentum again and suddenly feels like it has a clear direction.
My Authentic Blue slows me down for a different reason. It wants the writing to feel connected, to carry some meaning for whomever ends up reading it. When that sense of connection is missing, the words can come out flat and mechanical. What usually helps is finding a thread of personal relevance, however small, or talking the idea through with someone who understands where I’m coming from. Once the Authentic Blue in me feels grounded in a purpose, even a dry topic can open up in surprising ways, and the piece takes on a voice that feels more alive.
Resourceful Orange just wants to dive in; it doesn’t want to talk about outlines or structure. It thrives on momentum, the thrill of getting words onto the page without worrying where they’ll end up. It’s the spark that gets things moving, but if the environment feels stale or the energy dips, the Resourceful Orange in me can lose interest quickly. The fix is usually something simple: set a timer, change locations, or skip ahead to the most interesting or exciting part of the post. Once it is engaged, the draft comes together pretty fast.
Some days it’s Organized Gold getting stuck in the structure, Inquiring Green going too far down a rabbit hole, Authentic Blue searching for meaning, or Resourceful Orange looking for the next exciting thing. Luckily, that liberal arts degree of mine prepared me for exactly this; it made me a better writer, and taught me how to meet arbitrary deadlines, or at least come up with very creative reasons for missing them. If I can keep my plaid balanced, I’m confident I’ll reach my blogging goal for the year.
Brad Whitehorn – BA, CCDP is a lifelong Introvert, and the Associate Director at CLSR Inc. He was thrown into the career development field headfirst after completing a Communications degree in 2005, and hasn’t looked back! Since then, Brad has worked on the development, implementation and certification for various career and personality assessments (including Personality Dimensions®), making sure that Career Development Practitioners and HR Professionals get the right tools to do their best work. Brad is also on the board of directors for the Career Professionals of Canada, and an advisory committee member with the Career Development Professionals of Ontario.
2 Responses
Brad – I once ran a team-building workshop with Government of Canada accounts payable travel clerks using PD. One of their complaints – everybody thought their productivity was higher than everybody else. I split them into colour groups and had them talk about productivity. The Organised Golds based their grievances on volume. They processed more claims than anybody else. The Inquiring Greens claimed that they always got the most complex cases – travel reimbursement through two countries and four time zones on time change day with hotels, meals, taxis, childcare and airfare, whereas the OGs were reimbursing a parking receipt. Resourceful Oranges claimed that they worked faster than anybody else, with the lowest average time per file, which had the OGs grumbling about who had to correct the careless errors made by going too quickly, and the length of the breaks the ROs gave themselves when they were through their pile. Authentic Blues pointed out that any time anyone needed help, they dropped their own workload to coach, and anytime there was a birthday cake to be bought, collection for flowers, card to be passed around or a baby shower, they were the ones taking time out of processing to look after their teammates. It was eye-opening for everyone.
This is definitely one of those grat “a-ha!” moments. Putting