What Is Your Archetype?
Learning and living your archetypes means knowing yourself…like really knowing yourself. It’s learning how to find your passion and purpose. It’s living the life you are meant to live. If you find yourself wanting to know these things about yourself, or, if you want to learn more about your archetypes, you’ll want to keep reading!
Archetypes are our natural way of doing things. Knowing your archetypes mean knowing what your soul understands and then transferring it to your life. It’s knowing what comes easier to us than it does to others and it’s allowing ourselves to be drawn to and learn the things that we are extra interested in.
It’s also learning why you are drawn to certain people or things. If you know you are drawn to certain things but not really sure why you are, then understanding your Archetypes will clear things up. If you find yourself searching for your purpose or just find yourself searching in general, learning your archetypes is key.
Understanding and living my archetypes has changed my life. It has for many others as well and It can be for you too.
If you have a strong purpose in life,
you don’t have to be pushed.
Your passion
will drive you there.
Roy T. Bennett
How cool would it be it to be driven by passion instead of having to just push yourself through your day?
Archetypes according to Steve Jobs
Ask Steve Jobs (well you can’t actually do that any longer), but you can listen to what he has said and read what he has written. In his 2005 Stanford commencement speech, he first discussed doing what you love.
He told the story about being in college, not knowing what he wanted to do and felt like he was wasting his parents’ money, so he decided to quit…kind of. He dropped out of the required classes and took classes that interested him.
Jobs had noticed and was drawn to the beautiful calligraphy around campus so he decided to drop in on the popular class and he fell in love with it. This is how he described calligraphy. “It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.” Back up and read that again and really take in what he is saying. Now I like a good font, but those are some words of wonder, love, and awe…like me standing in front of an ancient castle or ruins in Italy kind of wonder, love, and awe. What would cause you to look at something in wonder, love, and awe? Probably not fonts.
Clearly, for him, learning calligraphy was a connection to his soul. The most important thing he did here was to listen to his soul, self, inner voice, spirit, God, or whatever you call it, and walk in that calligraphy class.
He trusted his intuition. In this speech, he went on to point that out that you must trust yourself. He said, “You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in the world.”
He had no idea when he walked in on that class, or even after it, how that decision would impact his life and ours for that matter. You see, that knowledge came a decade later.
When he was creating the first Mac computer, he remembered his love for calligraphy and created the first computer with visually appealing fonts, making it one of the things that immediately made Mac stand out.
Had he never listened to his soul or followed through with that connection he felt, we probably wouldn’t have the typeface options that we do today.
But, it didn’t end there. When he got fired from Apple (yes he got fired from his own business), he was devastated, but he said that this time freed him to step back and feed that creative side in him again (clearly one of his strong archetypes), and it was during this time that he created Pixar…imagine life without Toy Story!
How easy would it have been for him to just fall apart and quit? But again, he listened to himself.
Jobs benefited from living true to his archetype. He lived his life true to himself and was more than successful. We benefited too, and have these little things 🙂 called Apple (I’m a Mac kind of girl) and Pixar.
You see, when you learn your archetypes and live them, we all have better lives because of it.
Our scopes might be smaller but will still have a positive impact in our lives and those around us.
How can I find my archetypes?
There are many archetypes and they can change as time changes. There isn’t really a set number of archetypes that you have, but some feel that you have three primary archetypes and they currently come from 12 categories. They are below as defined on Archetypes.com. None rank higher than the other or are seen negatively.
- Creative – Creatives are artistically driven: they thrive on originality, romance, and expressing themselves thru the five senses.
- Athlete – The athlete is physically-driven. Athletes thrive on anything related to health and body.
- Rebel – The rebel is freedom-driven. Rebels thrive on wild and uncensored behavior.
- Caregiver – The caregiver is relationship-driven. Caregivers thrive on caring and nurturing.
- Visionary – The visionary is idea-driven. Visionaries thrive on hyper focus and intuition.
- Royal – The royals are power driven. They thrive on control, entitlement and luxury.
- Performer – The performer is attention-driven. Performers thrive on entertaining and eccentricity.
- Spiritual – The spiritual is belief-driven. Spirituals thrive on prayer and seeking.
- Tastemaker – The tastemaker is aesthetically-driven. Tastemakers thrive on trends, decor, and fashion.
- Explorer – The explorer is discovery driven. Explorers thrive on adventure and travel.
- Advocate – The advocate is cause-driven. Advocates thrive on social and environmental responsibility.
- Intellectual – The intellectual is data-driven. Intellectuals thrive on thinking and learning.
Caroline Myss, author of Archetypes – who are you? explains that archetypes are “an active part of our consciousness”(18).
There is a great free quiz you can take at www.archetypes.com! You should so take it! The quiz is short but I’ve studied archetypes for some time and I found my results pretty accurate.
It shows that I’m 63% Creative, 26% Spiritual and 11% Intellectual. The report then explains it a little further.For me, it says that the Creative act is essential to who I am – that is true. I cannot live without having some kind of creating happening in my life. The Spiritual seeks a deeper meaning – also true…and what my blog is really about.
The Intellectual likes to engage with questions and thoughtful debate – a smaller part of me, but true. I am not comfortable with surface conversations but am with deeper conversation. When I took this, instead of learning something new about myself (although you might) it really just validated what I already knew.
There are some other cool reports about your archetypes on this site as well. They give detailed reports on your archetypes and from those, you can see how they really apply to your life. They also show notable people and their archetypes, which is a great way to see how living your archetype is meaningful and can turn into success. The reports even go on to show things you might like to try or do and possible professions for you based on your archetypes.
I encourage you to play around a learn about yourself! You can also sign up for great emails about your specific archetypes.
So, now that I know what my Archetypes are, What now?
At the beginning of this I mentioned that knowing and understanding your archetypes can be life changing because once you understand these things, you will understand YOU, not just you. Then, you can take better care of you and do the things that speak to you.
How, exactly can that happen? Well, after you find out what your archetypes are and a little about them, you need to start by listening to yourself. Listen to what you long for. When your intuition (or whatever it is to you) is talking to you, listen to it…It’s pretty smart, knows who you are (sometimes more than you do) and knows what you need. Sometimes it’s s tug and sometimes it’s a scream – but listen to it nonetheless.
Then, put yourself in situations where you can utilize what comes naturally to you – which are your archetypes. If you are a Creative but don’t give yourself time to do that, do it. If you are a Tastemaker, start following trends, fashion and/or decor, and see if something pulls you and then find a way to incorporate it into your life. It could turn into a hobby that you love or, it could become your profession. Either way, it will feed your spirit and you will be a better you which equals a happy and better person. And, when you are happy and a better person, you can open your mind to so much more.
You should have listened to me.
Love, Intuition
How do you know when you’re living your archetypes?
When living your natural archetypes, you’ll have a sense of peace – it’s like you feel like you know, at that moment, this is what you should be doing. It is something that your soul understands and comes easier to you than the same tasks do to others.
For example, one of the things that I’ve done is helped chronically and terminally ill teenagers and mothers tell their life stories. Many, when hearing about it would say, I don’t know how you do that. Or, how can you do that? It must be so hard.
I really had to search for the right answers because it was so hard and I don’t know how I did it either. But, I did know, that while sitting next to those young women, I had this sense that I was right where I should be, the right words seemed to come and I was at total peace. I had a total calmness each time I was there.
Had I known then that my archetypes were Creative, Spiritual and Intellectual, I might have been able to answer with – it is hard, but the qualities it takes to do this happen to align with my archetypes so my spirit, soul, person, get it.
It can also be something not so emotional. I love decorating for an event. Ideas just storm my brain and I can easily take a person’s ideas and incorporate them to make it personalized and look pretty good! I get it; I thrive in it. Now, if you asked me to speak at the said event, I’d have diarrhea the entire day of it because Performer isn’t even a 1% for me!
Over the years I have always felt like I had a good life, but I’ve also felt unrest, like my soul, was longing for more. So, I’ve made it a point to make changes that feed my spirit and to started saying no to things that don’t. And, I finally feel like I’m living my life true to myself.
I’m not all the way there and still have much to do, but just being on my way is amazing. I am more content, excited about what’s to come and am at peace most of the time. And, because of that, I’m a better me, a better colleague, teacher, mentor, friend, daughter, mother and grandmother.
Imagine what this world would be like if we all REALLY got to know ourselves and lived true to our archetypes…think of all of the cool businesses people would invent that don’t even exist and how happy and content we would all be!
Take time to learn this about yourself. My soul is at peace and I want yours to be too.
PIN FOR LATER
For more tips on learning more about yourself, what you are meant to do, how you work, how to surround yourself with what you love and what is most important, check out some of my other posts below:
