This red person didn’t reflect the whole of who I am.
However, after having the seed planted, I took on this persona.
It amplified and I instantly dismissed any way of changing, moulding or adapting other than temporarily when interacting with someone else who was a different colour.
I had fallen into the self-fulfilling prophecy trap.
To be fair, for almost a decade I didn’t know about self-fulfilling prophecy.
But even when I did, I didn’t instinctively associate it with how I was identifying with regards to my personality.
Especially, as during my masters, on one hand, I was doing work on supporting kids in primary school and the other I was learning about how to effectively diagnose and label someone…
It didn’t click back then.
In fact, it didn’t really click until I started working for myself.
Unlike most psychologists, I always gave my clients a personality test and a mental health test before working together.
I’d use the results of the personality test to adapt the way in which I was working so it would be more effective and the mental health test would help me identify the necessary techniques required to help them move forward.
I also decided early on, we’d repeat the tests every 4 weeks just so that I could check it was working and they could see how they were changing.
While I knew their mental health test results would change, what I hadn’t expected was the dramatic change to their personality.