Last week, I was setting up my Facebook Live and the tech wouldn’t work. I kept trying to click through the options and it kept stalling and I was stuck. I skipped one week and in that time Facebook changed the interface. I didn’t know if I was doing something wrong, or if the issues were on their end, but I just felt the anxiety and stress creep up as 8:30 am came and then passed, and I still couldn’t make it work. I felt panicked and my heart was beating harder and faster. My muscles contracted and I felt stuck and rigid, not knowing what to do.

Does any of this feel familiar? Or are you someone who can easily roll with the punches and adapt quickly to change?

Eventually, I tried from my phone and got it to work, but I felt like I was “off” since I was late and couldn’t comment easily from my phone. As a result, I felt like the experience wasn’t as good for my viewers.

As I reflected on the experience later that day, I thought “My S Style doesn’t do well when things don’t work out as I planned.”

An S-Style is on the Reserved side of the horizontal DISC axis. Reserved people thrive on stability and status quo. They want things to go according to plan, and are not the “wing it” kind of people. They can resist change.

As I reflected with my thoughts (and feelings), I opened my DISC Assessment Report and I focused on a couple of areas to see if I could understand my feelings and reactions more.

I started with Situations that Reduce Your Motivation and there it was:

• Frequent, unexpected changes

• Insecurity, uncertainty

Yup! Knowing that people are waiting for me at 8:30, and facing the uncertainty about when (or if) I could get the tech to work, and then having to make unexpected changes definitely described the situation.

I looked my strengths:

• Works according to a plan

• Remembers her own and others’ promises

I had a plan! I had been executing that plan well for a few months. I made a public commitment to show up and talk live every Wednesday morning at 8:30 am MST.

I then read Reactions to Pressure Situations:

• Gives up too easily

• Is afraid to adjust to different situations

• Doesn’t believe in herself enough

Thankfully, I’ve worked on myself a lot and so I didn’t react in those ways, but I absolutely could have before I started really understanding myself. If this happened a few years ago, I probably wouldn’t have believed I could fix it, or come up with a work around solution; I would have been scared to try something new (get on my phone and do the Live – OK, I was still scared to do it, but I did it anyway) and I would have just given up.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time learning more about DISC the past few years, and I’ve spent a significant amount of time learning more about my style and all the gifts and challenges of it.

As I reflected on the situation earlier that day, it made sense why I felt stressed and anxious and why I wanted to give up and just say screw it.

I looked at my decision-making style and all of these are not natural to my style:

• Making courageous and risky decisions when under pressure

• Making spontaneous decisions based on intuition

• Making sudden and emotional decisions when under pressure

But I did those!

What I really love about DISC is that it is not an indication of what you can or can not do, but rather, a model to understand what is natural and what is not natural to your style. You can live into any of the styles, but if they are not natural, it just takes more energy. Last week when I had to suddenly adapt and live far outside my natural style, it took a lot of energy. Understanding my DISC style helped me understand why I felt stressed and exhausted. Recognizing the reason behind the emotions I felt during and after the Live allowed me to acknowledge them and then also to see how I could build in some downtime to release those emotions.

While I’ve found DISC incredibly useful to recognize others’ natural styles and adjust my behaviour and communication to their style, I actually think, one of the best things about it, is how I now understand myself so much better. Prior to DISC, I would have carried the anxiety and stress, the tight muscles and the general “amped upness” around all day, and I probably wouldn’t have shown up for others as well as I should have as a result.

I’ve found incredible power in understanding my natural style and in recognizing the styles of others. I’m able to better understand the behaviour of others and support them, and then tailor my approach. What I really love, though, is that I can learn and deepen my understanding. The report is detailed, and I started at a high level, but have slowly dug in more and more. It really is a tool that remains so useful.

If you’ve done DISC, then I encourage you to dig out your report and look at it again. If you haven’t, and would like to learn more, reach out and let’s talk!