The Top Ten Gifts of Being an Inner-Directed Individual

by Sarah Dolliver

Every human is born with distinct traits. Used well, they are assets that lead to a rich and rewarding life. Misused or under-utilized, they can become liabilities that create pain and struggle.

Inner-directed individuals (introverts, highly sensitive people, etc.) possess special qualities that set them apart from the average person. Still, the double-edged sword of asset or liability exists. This article looks at those particular traits with an eye to recognizing the edge between use and abuse of them.

1. Natural Edge: Your Natural Edge is the combination of all your innate gifts, talents and strengths. You thrive when you live them actively every day in everything you do. You struggle when you leave them behind and try to conform to being like other people, when you are not.

2. Strength: While endurance might not be the inner-directed person's forte, inner strength exists beyond compare. You live your strength when you combine it with your Natural Edge to solve life's issues. You suffer when you believe you are weak, discounting the possibility of being strong.

3. Compassion: Inner-directed individuals naturally relate to the world from a place of feeling. Compassion serves you when you use it to understand others at a deep level so it brings people and opportunities to you. It hinders you when you take on others' pains and woes as your own and bear their burdens instead of staying separate with objectivity. The difference is an appropriate emotional boundary.

4. Perception: It's terrific to "get" others without as much as exchanging a word. It gives you an extra edge to manage relationships, whether personal or professional. Like compassion, perception holds you back when the line between what is yours or theirs becomes blurred.

5. Self-awareness: Introspection is becoming more popular. It leads you to knowing yourself, your tendencies and patterns as well as opening up a more vigorous appetite of self-development. It delays you when you look inside and do nothing from it, forgetting that life is for living.

6. People skills: The combination of your compassion, perception and self-awareness yields your exceptional people skills. They bring you into deeper relationships that can have a profoundly positive influence on your life. They can stall you when you over-rely on too few relationships, leaving you feeling alone or isolated when one breaks.

7. Self-reliance: Independence is a wonderful thing and something many pursue. You stand out for your autonomy and ability to function on your own. However, it can get in your way when ideas or projects could go further or more easily with select input from others with complementary talents or viewpoints.

8. Mental abilities: Most inner-directed individuals have quick minds and stealth humor, easily seeing connections others miss. You shine when you offer divergent ideas that move problems by quantum leaps. You falter when you try to think through all life's issues, forgetting that feelings and intuition are reliable guides also.

9. Sensory signals: Many inner-directed individuals experience sensory input at a heightened level. Delight comes when those signals soothe and calm you. Over-stimulation easily develops from too much exposure to common things, such as noise, fast-moving visuals, pollution, technology screens and more. Developing your personalized balance can transform annoyance into bliss.

10. Creative nature: This one operates as a gauge of getting all the other ones attuned. Your creativity can be "over the top" when build the equilibrium that best suits you. Fail to do that and life's events turn into one overwhelm after another.
Every inner-directed individual holds the power to access and use these magnificent traits. How well you honor them as assets leads to your rewarding life.

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About Sarah Dolliver
Sarah Dolliver is the Founder of InnerVantage, the online community for inner-directed individuals - behaviorally defined as those who focus inward to restore. She serves as an empowering catalyst, insightful mentor and wholehearted supporter through the safe spaces she creates for clients to find the freedom to embrace and trust their truest self.
Her vision for InnerVantage is to remove the stigma from being introverted or highly sensitive (HSP) to allow these uniquely gifted individuals to lead fulfilling lives that bring their distinct contributions to the world. Sarah knows that when one embraces their inner-directed traits as their advantage, life transforms to bring comfort, ease and joy.
Strongly introverted and highly sensitive (HSP) herself, Sarah has been self-employed since 1992, owning her own consulting business before transitioning into the personal development field in 2001. Since then, she has taken on and thrived on large scope projects with confidence, such as Project Manager for ICF accreditation, and as International Study Group Director for CoachVille.
An accomplished trainer, writer, speaker, personal development specialist and an expert on the inner-directed individual. Sarah engages you with her warm, supportive and intuitive style that is strongly grounded in practical, identifiable outcomes.
The strength of her work comes from her distinctive 4-Step Self-Generating Cycle that eases personal growth while tapping into your Natural Edge gifts, talents and strengths. By using these two tools, each client she works with is guided to find their own wisdom and choose what is naturally best for them.
Sarah is a Coach U CTP Graduate (2003) and also graduated from CoachVille's Graduate School of Coaching. She also holds a BS in Management from Bentley College in Waltham, MA.
Outside of work, she enjoys hiking, yoga, playing backgammon, a wide variety of music, cats of all sizes and healthful cooking. And she always seems to have her nose in more than one book at a time, somehow keeping everything straight!
Visit Sarah online at www.InnerVantage.com.

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