This is about how much structure you need in your world to feel safe, or how much you don’t need because you are more carefree. It’s another great example of how people differ in their attitudes and preferences, how they are naturally wired. What feels good to you, knowing what’s coming around the corner, feels stifling and wrong to your spontaneous counterpart. Remember, the important task here is to not make the other person wrong, but to keep an open mind and remain curious when you really want to throw an adult tantrum.
People who act predictably do these 4 things:
They seek security, predictability and order first and may then experiment within safe parameters
The dream is to have a safety net so that life feels more stable and less anxiety-provoking
The fear of accepting influence revolves around making plans so they know it will happen. If you don’t plan, life feels out of control!
When being critical of their spontaneous partner, they might say something like, “YOU ARE RECKLESS!”
While this may seem over the top to you spontaneous folks (I am guilty here!), try to remember that predictable people feel SAFE in the world this way. So give them some slack. It took me about 15 years to chill out about this, so trust me I get it. But also, I tend to get my way more often now that I can present my case, let Chad consider it and then ta-da! I get my way :) WIN WIN.
People who act spontaneously do these 4 things:
They seek adventure, creativity, open-endedness and think life will just fall into place! They might be more structured only if a more spontaneous approach failed.
The dream is to avoid boredom because life is an adventure!
The fear of accepting influence stems from fear of slowly dying of boredom. Life will be dull and meaningless. Sigh…
When being critical of their spontaneous partner, they might say something like, “you’re boring and a coward!”
The two actually end up complimenting each other, at least that’s what I have found in my marriage. I’ve also found that the predictable people tend to be more introverted and the spontaneous ones tend to be more extroverted. If you are in a relationship and you fall into different categories in any of the core differences, I’d ask you to make a list of all the ways the other person’s preferences actually make your life better. If you are stuck in this task and have your feet dug in, give us a call, we can dig you out.