HVP Indicators: Tolerance & Meaningfulness of Work
Part 2: The first part of "Who You Are," or Know Thyself starts with clearly seeing yourself
Note: These two indicators fall under the umbrella of the Noticing and Self-Regard indictors so refer to that article if more info is helpful.
These two indicators are subsets of the first two we started with: Noticing and Self-Regard, which reflect our bandwidth for clearly noticing and paying attention to information in and around us.
Talking about “information” in the world is pretty broad. Most everything in the world fits into one of three categories—People, Work/Things and Ideas/Systems.
These three categories can be used to clarify types of information, and also types of thinking, areas of integrity, and strengths that people bring to a group.
The People category includes the intrinsic value of humans, qualities that make each person irreplaceably unique, and connection with ourselves and other people.
When we put that together, the Tolerance and Meaningfulness of Work indicators are about our bandwidth to specifically take in the People-category of information. (The next two pairs focus on the Work and Ideas categories.)
The gift in these two indicators is that they reflect how we are cruising through life in regard to our relationships with others and connection with ourselves.
Seeing the Unique Value of Others
Tolerance is the external World-side indicator in this pair. It reflects our bandwidth to clearly notice and pay attention to information relating to people, relationships, and interpersonal communication. It’s about the clarity of the lens that we see other people through, the way we notice and interpret non-verbal cues, our appreciation of the unique qualities of other people.
When you think of the people in your life who you love, you know the qualities that make them completely irreplaceable to you. That’s the difference between seeing people for who they are, rather than for what they do, the roles or titles they hold, or stuff they own.
Tolerance is about how clearly we see and value others for who they are as unique humans.
Experiencing The Unique Value of Ourselves
On the internal Self-side, Meaningfulness of Work is about our bandwidth to see and experience our personal uniqueness in our own life. So this indicator reflects how much meaningfulness we experience in our own life, based on our ability to see and know ourselves.
Practically, this is knowing things about our preferences, likes and dislikes, what makes us laugh. It’s also knowing our shadows and what we know we cannot sacrifice to maintain our integrity.
Meaningfulness of Work—which really could be thought of as Meaningfulness of Self—is about our bandwidth to see and know ourself deeply, for who we are as unique human beings.
In Real Life
In a nutshell, this information reflects the clarity of the lens we see others and ourselves through as we move through life.
There are a million distractions that serve to muck up the lens we see people through, but we can notice it’s happening when our brain is too busy with thoughts, reactions, and emotions to be present to the other person.
Signals that our lens or windshield might not be clear are things like:
Feeling too rushed to really engage in a conversation.
Feeling too emotional or angry to understand what the other person means, or to clarify what they are saying.
Bracing for conflict or for emotional reactions about differences.
When we feel that relaxed and solid openness that makes it feel like we can listen, feel calm, and ask questions to make sure that we’re understanding correctly, we’re dealing with a pretty clear lens. Even when the situation is uncomfortable, the ability to be this way in it feels pretty dang good.
On the internal Self-side, we can learn our personal signals that we aren’t appreciating our own qualities in the same way we value the people around us. As a result, we’re not getting to experience our life as meaningful as it could be if we were seeing and appreciating more of our intrinsic value.
For me, being resentful or bitter is one of my tip-offs that I’m dismissing important things about myself. It’s like a little nudge to pause and figure out what’s going on down in the basement.
Signals can be things like finding yourself frustrated, angry, disappointed, or bitter.
In my own experience, this was a pretty challenging indicator for me. I had the idea that focusing on the things that made other people special and interesting, while downplaying these same qualities in myself, was the way to be other-oriented.
But here’s the funny thing that happened to me. The more I grow to respect my own unique strengths, the more open and comfortable I am seeing and respecting, and even liking, different strengths, perspectives, and choices in others.
Becoming clear about who you are opens the door to see others for who they are.