As noted before, in Stage Climbing, hooks are your thoughts, feelings, and/or behaviors that are characteristic of stages (other than your default stage, which is the stage that you tend to identify with currently) in a given life area. Hooks are anomalies to the way you normally function. And in order to be considered a hook, it needs to be identified with a specific stage.
Category Archives: Stage Climbing
Hooks: Obstacles To Your Target Stage
As you Stage Climb, you’ll encounter hooks – parts of yourself that act as
obstacles standing in your way of living life at your target stage.
Hooks are anomalies to the way you normally function. Think of them as your
connections to stages other than your default stage, which is the stage that you
tend to identify with currently.
I use the word “hook” as a metaphor, because these lower-stage hooks do keep
you hooked to a lower stage. You might also call them your “hang-ups.”
Typical reasons for making Job or Career Changes:
You may be aware that a job or career change is necessary for you, but feel stuck. If you currently are nowhere near a Stage Six default with your work (as discussed in last week’s blog), but wish you were, take this opportunity to ponder what you really want to be doing with this part of your life. Make a list of all the excuses that are holding you back and deal with each one separately, or, for the sake of this exercise, pretend that your excuses simply don’t exist.
Your Best Attitudes about Your Career and the Work You Do
Let’s start the month of May by looking at your typical career outlook by the stages:
- Stage One―“It’s safe and provides me with feelings of security.”
- Stage Two―“It’s an easy way to find lots of opportunities to feel powerful by manipulating and bullying others as well as (perhaps) to make easy money.”
- Stage Three―“It is the type of work my family/ ‘tribe’ does (or always did) or values most.”
- Stage Four―“It gives me prestige and/or a steady stream of good people contact.” In addition, “It pleases the people in my life whose approval I value most.”
- Stage Five―“It’s lucrative (or pays the bills) and/ or gives me something to do and/or nice contacts and perks.”
- Stage Six―“I love what I do … It’s what comes easiest to me, feels most flowing and natural … I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else … I feel fulfilled irrespective of the financial and other extrinsic rewards I get … I get pleasure from the challenge of it … If I never again had to work, I would still choose to be doing this.”
- Stage Seven―“It’s an excellent way (or the best way I can) to make the contribution I want to make the most.”
If you cannot identify with the target stages Six and Seven careerwise, you may want to consider this a wake-up call.
How Families Operate at Each Stage
A major aspect of who you are is a result of the family you grew up in—your family of origin. The principles of Stage Climbing can explain much about your family and your own default stage in almost any area of your life. See what resonates most for you as we explore how families operate by the stages:
Your View of Spirituality by the Stages
Spirituality and religion are often used interchangeably. I refer to spirituality as an internally generated set of beliefs that reflect your connection to whatever you consider to be your God, source or higher self. Religion, on the other hand, is a set of spiritual beliefs that are learned externally. Lets sort this out by the stages:
How to Grow Up to Your Highest Potential, In the Shortest Time Possible
On this week of “new beginnings”, I thought it would be a good idea for this week’s blog to introduce the basics of the Stage Climbing process in case you are new to it (and this site) as well as for those who can use a refresher or motivator to put it to work for you.
Let’s start with a few questions to perhaps ask yourself: What will it take to make your life better, so that you can reach your highest potential and feel happier, more, satisfied, more creative, more effective and more at peace? How can you make a positive and lasting impact on the people around you, and ultimately, perhaps, on the whole world? How can you literally GROW UP to a more improved– or better yet — the best possible you?
How Grief (over loss) is Typically Handled by the Stages
We each grieve in our own way. When we allow ourselves to express our feelings of sadness, they tend to clear out of us naturally and usually lead to acceptance of the loss. However, when this process becomes blocked as it often does for a variety of reasons; grief can lead to chronic depression, anger, anxiety, and a variety of other stifling emotions and conditions.
What Typically Trigger Depression in You at Various Stages
Depression is a condition that can be medical, psychological, or both. More importantly, it can negatively affect the quality of your life and every aspect of it. To gain an understanding about depression, along with strategies and exercises to manage it as well as information about when more treatment is necessary, visit the “Downloads” page on this site, to download your complimentary MP3 audio, Overcoming Your Depression. I wrote this program to be a major step toward bringing your mood under your own control.
What Typically Trigger Anxiety in You at Various Stages
What typically triggers Anxiety in you at each of the seven stages:
- Stage One―Fears concerning such things as abandonment, physical or mental disability and extreme poverty … Being, living, and/or dying alone where you would be or even merely feel unable to survive or change a dreaded fate.
- Stage Two―The prospect of being caught, punished, or exposed for your deliberate antisocial activities … Losing your freedom or cover … Twos often have a built-in immunity to anxiety. Thus, it can take a lot for some Twos to feel any anxiety at all.
- Stage Three―Leaving your comfort zone, especially when “the rules” aren’t clear … The possibility of being damned, punished, or even killed for doing or perhaps even thinking something different than whatever would be acceptable to a feared authority (real or imagined) … “Shades of gray.”
- Stage Four―Being (or the prospect of being) rejected, embarrassed or seen as inadequate, “a failure” or of lesser worth by someone (or many, e.g., your peer group or even a segment of the public) whose validation is important to you … Worries about losing a love relationship through some form of rejection, are very characteristic of this stage..
- Stage Five―Becoming unglued as your roles expand; or worry that circumstances will overwhelm or render you unable to fulfill your roles … The awareness of any form of self-sabotage, where you somehow (usually by virtue of your lower-stage hooks) defeat your own purpose or inadvertently get into your own way.
- Stage Six―The prospect of failure (or being unable) to pursue or receive satisfaction from something you passionately enjoy.
- Stage Seven―When worried about or feeling powerless to combat forces that oppose you when trying to make the necessary contribution that the mission or calling to which you are committed requires … The prospect of not bringing your mission, calling, or contribution to fruition.