Have you ever encountered someone
with a powerful, independent personality? Did you feel like it was off putting,
like the person might be hard to like? Chances are you simply didn’t understand
the kind of person you were interacting with.
Often times, these types of people
can come off as aggressive, rude, overly opinionated or just plain bitchy.
Chances are it feels like they are trying to dominate you, or make you feel
insignificant. In actuality, nothing could be further from the truth.

Dominant, aggressive, rude, arrogant.
These descriptors actually do not typify a person with a powerful, independent
personality at all. In fact, strong people are often some of the biggest teddy
bears, and emotionally available people you will ever have the chance to meet
once you make a genuine effort to get to know them. It’s just that people with
strong personalities tend to give the meeker, more mild of us a bad rap.
Those people with strong
personalities do not have to win, nor do they want to necessarily. Its not
about being better than anyone else. They typically just are not willing to let
other people walk all over them, or put up with being used and abused.
Sure, sometimes strong people might
be intimidating to you. But that is only as a result of you noticing their
outward manifestation of their inner self confidence, and lack of need to seek
validation from their peers.
Do you have a powerful personality?
Here are eight signs that you have a strong personality that might scare some
people.
01. YOU ARE CAUTIOUS, MAYBE EVEN
PICKY ABOUT WHO YOU LET INTO YOUR LIFE
As a person with a strong
personality, you do not rely on other people to define who you are, or what you
are capable of.
You recognize that some people need
to put others down to make themselves feel better. Here’s the thing about being
picky: it forces you to have high self-esteem and you build a great connection
with your own self: you build your own voice of what you want and what works
for you. Its not that you don’t necessarily get along with people, its just
that you know exactly what you want in your relationships and social exchanges,
and you aren’t willing to settle for less.
Even if you are still trying to
discover your own identity, you know that you do not need a significant other,
boss, best friend or family member to tell you what you’re capable of, or how
to accomplish your goals.
02. YOU CANT STAND TRIVIAL
CONVERSATIONS
Conversations about the weather, and
trivialities are often unbearable, and uncomfortable. If you have a powerful
personality, you probably spend a lot of time thinking deeply, and have a lot
of ideas to share. You do not want to waste time talking about things that in
the long run dont really matter all that much, when you could be spending your
energy changing the world.
You might feel like you are bad at
small talk. But that is not true. Anyone can make small talk. You are simply
uncomfortable with meaningless pleasantries.
Unfortunately, our culture has deemed
small talk a social necessity. Wikepedia even goes so far as to describe it as
a “social lubricant”, which makes it sound a whole lot more fun than it
actually is.
Small talk is meant to be light and
fun. It flees from depth and meaning. Personal questions are considered
inappropriate. Likewise, any emotion besides happy or neutral is discouraged.
Consequently, authenticity dies on the vine.
The truth is that small talk allows
two people to have an entire conversation without really getting to know each
other. Instead of being light and fun, the conversation is flat and boring. It
is like a game of chess where both players always know each other’s next move.
It is a predictable exchange, with predictable results.
For people with a powerful
personality, it is one of those annoying hurdles we must cross to get to the
good stuff.
03. YOU ARE IRKED BY INSENSITIVITY,
IDIOCY OR WILLFUL IGNORANCE
Strong personalities are the result
of being thoughtful and well-informed, as well as being confident in their
mental prowess.
Because you have put time and effort
into exercising your brain for good, it often can be nerve wracking when people
make instant judgments about things they do not know, or understand anything
about on more than a surface level.
This could be your best character
trait, but not because you can use your knowledge to persuade, or influence
people. It is because you can use it to encourage people to think for
themselves, and to carefully consider what they say before it falls out of
their mouth.
04. YOU DON’T TOLERATE EXCUSES
Self empowered, strong people do not
put up with excuses.
When you have a strong personality,
you refuse to allow people to waste your precious time whining or complaining
about what they can or cannot do. You are action oriented. You would rather
focus on what you, yourself, can do and how you can overcome obstacles to do
more. You focus on the solution, instead of agonizing over the problem. You are
always pushing yourself to be a better version than you were yesterday, despite
others who might want to drag you down.
Don’t question yourself for not
making excuses. There might be a lot of reasons that you can’t do something but
there are more reasons that you can.
05. YOU KNOW HOW TO REALLY LISTEN
Many people only listen with the
intent of responding. However, those with strong personalities know how to
listen with an open mind, and an open heart. You might think that people would
appreciate this. But in reality, being heard and encouraged often terrifies
people who are not used to it.
06. YOU DO NOT CRAVE SUPERFICIAL
ATTENTION
Having a powerful personality means
that you do not need attention, nor do you seek it. A majority of the people
that you encounter on a day to day basis might get the impression that you live
for it, but this is simply incorrect. The attention a strong person receives is
not sought, but given freely because others enjoy, and value what they have to
offer intellectually, and emotionally.
07. YOU ARE FREE OF IRRATIONAL FEARS
There is most likely one thing, or
several that you are afraid of. But the difference between you and your peers
is that your fears are not baseless or rooted in an unhealthy obsession with
worry. You do not let your fears control you, instead you face them head on and
take control of the way you live your life.
08. YOU TURN YOUR INSECURITIES INTO
OPPORTUNITIES
Insecurity for you is an opportunity
to to improve yourself, your situation or to just do better. You know you’re
not perfect but if you are not giving your best effort to learn, grow, and
evolve, despite what others may think, then you are not living. You are just
existing in limbo. You value progress, and embrace change.
They say everyone is insecure and
this is most likely true for the most part. However, a strong person refuses to
allow insecurity to rule their life.
Sure, some people have the perception
that people with big personalities are hard to be around, or hard to love. They
are simply too shallow to realize you’re only difficult to be around because
you challenge other people to be the best version of themselves! If this is
what being difficult is like than you already know that it is best to just keep
being you.