HOW TO MAKE DECISIONS AS A GENERATOR OR MANIFESTING GENERATOR

 

One of the most important things I am learning from Human Design (my type is Manifesting Generator) is how to make decisions. Any decision, from what to eat, where to move, what to create in my business, or even what to write today.

The short intro to what a Manifesting Generator (a sub-type of Generator) is, is that we are designed to work. We are the doers and the workers of this world -which to me, honestly, did not sound very sexy (because who wants to be a workhorse?). After studying it for a while, now I see this differently. We are powerful creators. We have tremendous life force energy but we need to access it the correct way. Our theme is sustainable work force energy and life force energy. When we find the right work and the right opportunities, we then find happiness and meaning in our lives. We feel frustrated when we do not find the right work or the right expression of our life-force energy.

But here’s the thing. We’re not initiators. We are great doers and workers when we RESPOND. This is the “right way” for us to access our energy. It’s all about implementing the right strategy for us to access this energy, that will propel our powerful energy.

Let me get off this Human Design horse and break this down in simple words.

 

“JUST DO IT”: HOW OUR CULTURE HAS LEAD US IN THE WRONG DIRECTION

 

Most of us are conditioned to work in a traditional way (9-5 jobs, for example), and our society really values and encourages the “go! Just do it!”. Most of us tend then to initiate something also, because being “a leader/ having initiative” are things that are very well regarded in our culture. Our culture also regards “doing” as a virtue (“idle hands are the devil’s hands”, right?), so if we do nothing, we are nothing or are worth nothing in the western culture’s eyes.

So what is the usual behaviour that this set of cultural beliefs tends to create? We work our asses off. We are busy all the time. We hardly take a moment to stop and breathe. We run from one place to the next. The busier, the better. What does this ultimately create? Exhaustion…

As Generators and Manifesting Generators, our theme (=like a mission) is indeed to work and do. However, if we listen to our Human Design, HOW we do this is very different than the way our culture has conditioned us to do it.

 

WHAT TO LISTEN TO INSTEAD (and work less hard)

 

Our strategy (=how we do this) is to observe and respond, based on our “inner authority” (either the sacral or the emotional solar plexus), simply put, our body, physical response (note: not the brain!). I’m going to give you an example so it’s not so jargony.

This is the “not aligned way” to do something, for a Generator/Manifesting Generator:

• On countless occasions, I’ve spent hours and hours thinking about what content to write for my blog. Maybe this, or maybe that. I usually feel completely uninspired when I do this, and even though I force myself to start a new page, I hardly ever finish it, or if I do it’s because “I have to, this is what everybody else does, even professional writers, they stare at the blank page until inspiration strikes”, it usually leaves me depleted and uninspired. I keep at it though because “this is what I should do”.
• I’ve had an idea overnight of a program I could offer to my clients, an idea out of the blue, because I *think* it can be interesting for other people too. I go ahead and create it. I share it with people. A few things can happen here: no one is interested, and no one buys it, or maybe one or two buy it, but not to the extent that I had wanted/wished for, so I get disappointed or frustrated. I can also get uninterested myself after a short while because I have another brilliant idea that excites me more. I go on and create something else (or not). I get no answer/become uninterested, and so on, until I burn myself out and think I suck because no one buys the stuff I so lovingly create. Over time, I’ll feel angry and frustrated. > I am trying to create something “out of the blue”, from my mind, and most often than not, it will flop, or it will require excessive energy to maintain over time, leading to burn out and frustration.

 

Same examples, the “aligned way”, when I follow my “response strategy”:

• As I’m scrolling on Facebook, I read someone’s post about “how to get clients fast”. It makes my eyes roll. I get angry and it makes me want to rant. As a Manifesting Generator, I feel my sacral response is “yes! Go ahead and answer!”, so I go ahead and write my rant. I share it with my audience, maybe as a comment on his/her post if I’m not too afraid (lol). Some people will agree with me and see it as a new perspective, some others won’t, but in any case, I will feel satisfied because I wrote something that excited me as a response to someone else’s content.
• I wake up in the morning thinking about something a client said yesterday that we didn’t cover in much detail and I feel I could have added more. I see someone else on Fb having a similar question, and I decide to create a blog post or a class where I can address this topic. > I’m responding to something specific that’s outside my head. An article, a video, a conversation, a situation, anything that’s outside of me can serve as something I can respond to. It feels easy for me to create this class or blog because I was inspired by something outside of me.

 

Here’s the wonderful thing about responding: I don’t have to work so hard. I only need to observe, watch what inspires me, listen to what my sacral says (yes or no), and if it’s a yes, follow that inspiration and act on it. I don’t have to create from scratch, or initiate anything from scratch. Actually, for Generators and Manifesting Generators, it is advised NOT TO initiate or create from nothing.

Once we start applying this strategy and practice the art of responding, everything flows with more ease.

 

When I discovered my Human Design and the right strategy for me to make decisions (= to respond), I started paying attention to all the things I’ve created in my life that have worked, also all the things that I find “easy”, and why + also all those that haven’t worked, and why  (what “worked” can be from a  financial point of view, or a “meaning” point of view or something else depending on what I’m considering…). I came up with the observation that what is easiest for me, by a long way, is when I respond to something. For example, one of the reasons I love doing Supervisions with coaches in training is because I can answer questions, I have “material” to respond to (=a recording of their coaching I give feedback on + questions they ask me). I love when people ask me questions about topics I love. But I usually find it very hard to start a conversation.

To be able to respond, something else needs to happen: you need to “stay still” and observe. Observe until you find something you want to respond to.

I happen to be a great observer and listener (some of the great gifts of being an introvert!), so for me, this is very easy to do and, now that I’m aware of these elements and how to use these gifts, this strategy is a breath of fresh air and it works really well for me.

 

HOW TO BECOME MASTERFUL IN THE “ART OF RESPONDING”

 

As I experiment myself to be more masterful in the “art of responding”, here are questions I ask myself to grow my awareness (as invited to by Danielle Gardner who teaches a class on “the Art of Responding”):

• Every morning, ask myself: “what can I respond to today?”
• What are people asking me about (in general, in life)?
• What do I notice people talking about? What do I want to say about it?

 

When Generators and Manifesting Generators start creating and doing as a response to something external, not only can they sustain their energy for longer, but they also find more meaning, ease and satisfaction in what they are doing. This also allows us to accept that “observing” is part of the process, and “being idle” and “still” are needed to be able to create and do (as opposed to seeing it as useless/devil ).

Note that in Human Design, there are 5 different “types” (Generators and Manifesting Generators being two of them), and each type has their specific Strategy, so what I’m describing above really only works for the Generators and Manifesting Generators.

Beyond me finding this stuff fascinating (which is “normal” because I’m a 1/3 in Human Design, which is the so called “Investigator Martyr”, the one that sets the theme for the on-going ‘human’ journey of bumping into, investigating what we bump into, and resolving and understanding the unknown), I think there is a bigger lesson here.

I’ve known this for a long time. I know that I respond better than I initiate. My head knows this, my body knows this, every part of me knows this, I have evidence of this in my life. BUT I’ve always made myself wrong for this. “I should be able to initiate more, I should be able to write from scratch, I should this or I should that… “. And I have, for a long time, but at what price… Learning about my Human Design has served as a validation of my own knowing. A permission slip in a way, like “aaaaah, now I can just be me and stop the trying to have something else work for me”. It’s a huge relief of course. To be validated for who I am, just as I am. To be able to shed that “not-self” that is making me work hard, when I can work in flow, and get to the same outcome. HD is just one of the ways I am finding to “validate myself”, there’s been a lot of other ways that have helped me see myself for who I really am, that have helped me shed different layers that were creating parasite noise or dissonances.

 

FINDING YOUR OWN TRUTH IS THE PATH TO TRUE FULFILLMENT

 

Beyond Human Design, I’d like to invite you to think about all those areas of you and your life where you *know* something to be true for you deep down, and yet you make yourself wrong and want it to be different. Pay close attention to what feels easy and joyful in particular, and all the ways you may be making yourself wrong for this (like: this work is so easy, I shouldn’t be paid for this, if I don’t work hard, it has no value, I shouldn’t be so direct when I talk to people, etc…).

What if you just accepted that what feels easy is actually a sign that yes, it’s the right path for you!? That it’s a sign that you are letting your true self guide you?

The more I grow on my path, the more I support people on their own journeys, the more I deeply know and believe that ONE’S own truth is what leads to success and fulfilment. Human Design is one of the great tools that illuminates this path of self-awareness and acceptance.

 

 

 

(Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash)