Intrapersonal Skills

It's time for the enhancement of your intrapersonal awareness and inner calmness. What is the term intrapersonal meaning?

The term intrapersonal separates our inner functions and processes from the physiological functions of the physical body and external world.

How to define intrapersonal skills?

What is intrapersonal?

The word intrapersonal means the inner domain that we as humans have. While we often refer to it as the mind, the word is too vague as the mind has several processes within it.

Our mind contains several constantly changing inner processes like feeling different emotions, using thinking and imagination, etc. The ease in leading those internal processes can't be reached as long as all those inner processes are lumped together simply as 'the mind'.

This becomes even more important as our intrapersonal level also has a stable level – the level of consciousness. Consciousness in its active form is awareness.

Using the term mind doesn't allow the distinction between our True Self and the different intrapersonal functions that can be led by using awareness.​ Learning more about our awareness and intrapersonal skills is what allows us to secure personal sustainability and brain health.

Intrapersonal skills define such practical inner skills that no one can take from us. Intrapersonal skills are proven self-leadership and success skills that also guarantee our productivity and mental wellness at the same time.

The application of intrapersonal skills improves employee engagement and reduces health risks.

Using our intrapersonal intelligence is what allows us to observe and understand our inner domain and lead all the events within our minds at will.

The actual meaning of intrapersonal skills isn't about knowing them in theory (having heard about them). The mastery of intrapersonal skills defines how well can you as an individual apply those inner skills consciously in all work and life situations.

All useful skills are practical and personal. Therefore, what will define your own intrapersonal skills mastery is your practical application of these skills in daily life. When applied, those become your inner safety net which keeps your mind calm and fit.

Are you aware that the key to improving your intrapersonal intelligence is your awareness?

Awareness is the calm background allowing you to calmly observe all events inside and outside your mind.

Please read on and benefit from the deep and practical knowledge here.

Instead of presenting a theory, we explain in-depth intrapersonal skills benefits. We aim to make the definition of intrapersonal skills clear for you in the practical sense.

We'll share insights into why intrapersonal skills and awareness matter to you and your team in practice.

How should you define intrapersonal skills for yourself?

Interpersonal skills are your success skills. What matters here, more than the actual definition, is your practical knowledge that your inner skills allow you to respond adequately in every situation and thrive.

No matter where you go, your intrapersonal skills are with you.

No matter what kind of task you solve, you can always rely on your awareness and awareness-based skills that allow you to lead your inner processes at will.

Intrapersonal skills make you less dependent on others and circumstances.

HOW ARE INTRAPERSONAL SKILLS BENEFICIAL TO ME?

Excellent intrapersonal skills will allow you and your team to gain mental strength. As a benefit, you and your team will become more productive without sacrificing your mental wellness.

Intrapersonal skills are easily learnable by everyone as the human brain is neuroplastic.

What does neuroplastic mean in the context of intrapersonal skills?

Neuroplasticity means that you are capable of molding your brain in all sorts of different ways throughout your life either, by subconsciously copying the habits of others or by your own conscious will.

Currently, awareness-based intrapersonal skills meaning to most of us remain vague, at best, because we lack intrapersonal education and therefore fail to use our awareness to observe our own interpersonal events. This leaves us dependent on reactivity and habits.

INTRAPERSONAL SKILLS FOR PERSONAL SUSTAINABILITY AND IMPROVING WORK RESULTS

In her scientific paper 'Developing Intra-Personal Skills as a Proactive Way to Personal Sustainability – The Preventative Side of the Mental Health Equation' our mental wellness expert, Dr. Helena Lass writes that "in reality, all humans possess an internal realm and experience intrapersonal events daily such as feeling emotions, learning, thinking, planning, focusing and leading our attention, having an ability to investigate, gaining an insight, etc." In this context, intrapersonal skills become our 'superpowers' for directing different intrapersonal events.

When we are the masters of our inner domain, we have the freedom to be well and work well.

Today often interpersonal skills coaching and training is lacking or unsystematic. That is a mistake as without leading yourself first, success is difficult. That is exactly why intra and interpersonal skills need to pair up.

Intrapersonal skills = success skills

Intrapersonal skills form the foundation of any successful career, yet are lacking in workplaces and the wider business world because of their total absence in current educational curricula.

INTRAPERSONAL SKILLS OPEN UP PROFESSIONAL SKILLS

What are the benefits of intrapersonal skills?

Intrapersonal skills importance lies in securing inner calmness and opening up our professional skills and mental sharpness.

Intrapersonal skills enable us to deal with and lead all processes within our inner domain (as the term mind is too narrow here). Staying calm and knowing how to focus allows people to be more engaged and productive.

Self-leadership allows us also to eliminate our inner disturbances that would otherwise easily disturb our work, like lack of attention, constant inner reactivity to external events, shortage of insight, worry, negative self-talk, etc. While intrapersonal communication is sometimes seen narrowly as self-talk, the true potential of intrapersonal skills will expand when we bring in a practical understanding of our own awareness.

Hence, here on this wellbeing website, we focus on training awareness-based intrapersonal skills. Skills that can be your business and health advantage.

Intrapersonal skills open up your inner potential.

Dr. Lass writes in her scientific paper, "By learning, training and directing intrapersonal skills, a vast amount of inner potential will open up, ultimately advancing our human capacity and leading us towards better mental wellness." That is the best summary of the meaning of intrapersonal skills.

Only when one experiences mental fitness due to a fit brain and a silent mind, can one solve external problems with ease, be creative and take easily personal initiative at work.

What is the meaning of intrapersonal skills?

What is intrapersonal skills definition?

We can define intrapersonal skills as the basic skills that open up all other skills. Much like learning to read: when one learns to read, many other skills and competencies can be developed as a result.

Without understanding the practical value and meaning of intrapersonal skills, our own inner processes that lead to worry, stress, and anxiousness remain a mystery that somehow 'happens' to us.

The importance of intrapersonal skills is that they allow us to lead our lives and our work with fewer struggles.

HOW DO DIRECT INTRAPERSONAL PROCESSES AT WILL?

Dr. Lass writes in her scientific paper: "Being awareness-based, intrapersonal skills are the pre-requisites of a fulfilling life and more harmonious and sustainable society. We need to know how to deliberately direct awareness to learn effectively, differentiate lasting values from fleeting ones to support our choices for a meaningful life, and learn to individually connect cause with a consequence to become responsible citizens. One can contribute and reach goals considerably better if there exists know-how about the conscious application of awareness to effectively process data, orient in changing the environment, and become aware of and regulate one’s emotional as well as mental reactions."

The globally published paper also states, "A structured approach to intrapersonal functions enables the entities that people describe as the mind, Self, awareness, subconscious, spirit, ego, etc., to obtain a clearer meaning and a practical reference." What it means is that we gain a practical understanding of how to direct different inner processes at will and thus we can be successful at taking personal responsibility and leading others and external processes around us.
 

DISCOVERING INTRAPERSONAL AWARENESS AND OUR INNER DOMAIN

According to Ingvar Villido (Master teacher on awareness, Author and Founder of the Practical Consciousness™ method and several books), there are three main types of internal functions (the meta-functions) that every person needs to direct every day, but hasn't been trained to do so in school:

• Awareness and intellect-related;
• Mental and cognition-related;
• Feelings and emotions.

Mastery of intrapersonal skills = excellent self-leadership

Training intrapersonal skills helps people to direct all their internal activities (activities within their mind) deliberately.

On this wellbeing website, we have a focus on intrapersonal skills online training. Hence, all you read here is available at your location!

Intrapersonal skills examples are, according to Villido, the ability to direct one's awareness at will, the capability to observe and differentiate, the ability to access insights and intuition, etc.

TRAINING INTRAPERSONAL SKILLS ALLOWS THE DISCOVERY OF DIRECTING INTERNAL ACTIVITIES DELIBERATELY

What are examples of interpersonal skills?

How can I connect intrapersonal skills with my life and work? What are the intrapersonal skills that allow me to thrive at work?

In this table, we list intrapersonal skills that support our life and mental wellness:

The intrapersonal skills list could probably be even longer and almost everything on the inventory above overwhelmingly supports intrapersonal wellness.

Intrapersonal skills support good interpersonal skills

It isn't intrapersonal vs interpersonal. Instead, we need to acknowledge that intrapersonal skills are the fundamental foundations of good interpersonal skills (good work relations, excellent customer relations, loving family relations, etc.). However, until the term awareness remains vague, we can't be masters of self-leadership.

All intrapersonal skills rely upon the practical experience of our own awareness. In that sense, we can state that directing your awareness at will is the most crucial intrapersonal skill.

Without the component of awareness, we lack the "tool" to lead or access those listed intrapersonal processes. Our awareness is the key to all intrapersonal learning and enables us to set intrapersonal goals, such as inner calmness and a peaceful mind.

WHAT IS AWARENESS?

Awareness, as the dynamic use of consciousness, isn't mental knowledge, emotions or physical phenomena (body). According to Ingvar Villido, Eckhart Tolle, Namkhai Norbu, and many other experts on the topic, awareness is our cognitive ability to properly register what is going on, in the present tense.

"Awareness is your ability to register what is going on." – Ingvar Villido

According to Villido and yogic science human awareness can be described as a connector between you and any chosen object (an external object, like a pencil or an object on your computer screen; an internal object like your thoughts or feelings). It is namely awareness that you sustain in a certain position when you want to focus on something (be it an external or internal object, like your thought, see the illustration below).

Illustration of the arrow of awareness between you and the object information is shared with the kind permission of awareness teacher Ingvar Villido. Illustration design Jürgen Salenbacher.

Being closer to our True Self than our mind, awareness represents the specific thing we implement to investigate the mind itself. As a universal agent for discovery, awareness represents the fundamental base for all intrapersonal skills vital for our mental sharpness.

THE IMPORTANCE OF YOUR TRUE SELF IN PSYCHOLOGY

It is your True Self who can use awareness at will. Your unconscious ego can't do that.

Carl Jung was one of the first psychiatrists to bring forward the importance of the Self – the central overarching concept governing the individuation process. The Self in his eyes was total unity. Jung viewed it as the psyche's central archetype.

Dr. Lass points out in her scientific paper “none of the existing modalities in evidence-based psychotherapy has provided an applicable education towards re-establishing the human’s most natural state, where we identify with Self rather than ego and provided methods to systematically discontinue the automatic reactions that people have started to consider normal and become identified with.”

WHY IT IS IMPORTANT TO DISCOVER AWARENESS?

Without the discovery of awareness, it is very difficult to discover our primordial state or our silent True Self. Something beyond our ego, emotions, and thoughts, a state that is full of natural inner calmness.

This silent inner state intentionally allows us to lead all processes within our minds with the greatest ease.

SELF OBSERVATION IS THE FUNDAMENTAL INTRAPERSONAL SKILL

Namkhai Norbu writes in his book "The Crystal and the Way of Light", "Whenever one doesn't find oneself in the primordial state one should constantly observe oneself without distraction governing one’s behavior with the kind of ‘relative’ self-observing awareness that recognizes the consequences of one’s actions, and one should maintain this awareness for as long as the ‘absolute’ spontaneous non-dual awareness of the primordial state, that is one’s true condition, is not present."

It is impossible to find your True Self or your calm mind anywhere else than within yourself.

A well-know Indian teacher Padmasambhava stated it well (in "The Yoga of Knowing the Mind"):

Choosing awareness means awakening from the autopilot of thoughts and conditioned emotional reactions – everything in life becomes more colorful, more real, acquiring sharper lines and aliveness.

Choosing awareness to observe one's mind represents the most efficient inner tool we have, it opens up a direct path of removing all our inner obstacles. Learning how to lead/use our awareness will enable us to properly train our mind/brain.

HOW IS AWARENESS DIFFERENT FROM MINDFULNESS?

Mindfulness is a term that refers to certain awareness practices adapted from Buddhism into our modern world. Most mindfulness practices are passive in nature (for example, witnessing and observing).

In mindfulness, awareness is used to discover and monitor. The awareness practices that are today known as mindfulness highlight just one of the five modalities to use awareness. Practices that enable application awareness in the active or dynamic form remain to be discovered by modern societies, business leaders, and professionals.

We are certain that when the awareness practices in their active format become normal, those will rise as an elder brother or second pillar alongside the first pillar of the already well-known mindfulness.

All Wellness Orbit intrapersonal wellness e-trainings enthusiastically promote the active use of awareness in our daily practice.

Active use of awareness cuts the limitations of mindfulness.

Once discovered, the extensive use of awareness in its active form will empower people to initiate change.

The first major benefit from such a change is actively disengaging the autopilot mode – this grants us freedom from our inner reactions that happen automatically, without awareness of such events. The second change is concerned with replacing the foundations of how one handles data.

In essence, this means upgrading your brain's operating system from a mental train of thoughts to receiving instant insights. This enables innovation and remarkable discovery, as happened to Newton when he was sitting under the apple tree and gained a revolutionary insight after he was hit by the falling apple.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN AWARENESS AND CONSCIOUSNESS

When you become aware of your awareness – you have discovered your consciousness. Consciousness being itself static, isn't of use in practical work/life situations.

It is your awareness in its active form that allows establish the connection between yourself (your True Self as the subject) and an endless amount of objects. Those objects can appear both in your inner world (within your mind) and the external world around you.

Awareness of your awareness = consciousness

Let's bring some practical examples – it is your awareness that enables you to:

• Notice the feeling of growing pressure;
• Focus on the task at hand (even in an open office situation);
• Observe what goes around you; for example, observe where the moving ball is so that you can catch it during the ball game;
• Notice external possibilities; like when to change the lane on the motorway without disturbing traffic flow;
• Observe what happens within your mind; for example notice insights, intuition and use your creativity at will;
• Use your intrapersonal abilities to direct different inner processes at will (mastery of intrapersonal skills);
• Become conscious (aware of awareness) and experience your True Self.

INTRAPERSONAL SKILLS AS A KEY TO MENTAL WELLNESS

Learning and training on how to use your awareness remain the fundamental cornerstone of intrapersonal skills. It will enable you to overcome the practical limitations of passive mindfulness and meditation practices in our work situations.

Active awareness practices highlight the application of awareness that you already possess, just in a much more deliberate and skillful way.

There is no longer a need to do specific sitting practices or take extra time to apply awareness – you will learn and adequately train to practice it during a presentation while listening, or just completing your daily work behind the desk.

Awareness also enables one to notice how to solve any conflict or even helps to complete shopping efficiently.

Leadership and initiative are based on intrapersonal skills.

Life is dynamic – always changing. Learning how to deal with changes within the mind and around us in the physical world leads to good mental wellness. However, awareness represents the first step that enables one to become aware of the root causes of the problems within our mind or inner domain in the first place.
 

STOP PROCRASTINATION AND MIND WANDERING

Awareness and intrapersonal skills enable you to stay calm in all situations and to switch off the otherwise dominating autopilot mode and take full command over your own life and work. No more mind wandering or loss of track of what you need to do.

Intrapersonal skills improve focus.

When you observe successful people, you will typically discover that they have one thing in common – they are very attentive in their area of expertise as they use awareness in their area of expertise more extensively than others do.

Expanding that principle isn't only possible but desirable, as it enables one to find how to be impeccable on any task. Instead of perfectionism, the aim is to do the best you can under the circumstances that you face.

While perfectionism leads to stress and burnout, impeccability gets things done! Intrapersonal skills bring along small shifts that make all the difference.

A mind that can hold sustained focus, can work wonders.

WHAT IS INTRAPERSONAL SKILLS APPLICATION BENEFIT FOR ME?

Better intrapersonal abilities free you from worry and regret and enable you to stay mentally well and fit for any challenge. That is why you and everyone in your team should actively strive to improve intrapersonal skills and mental sharpness.

Extraordinary aptitude is always your business benefit! That is why intrapersonal intelligence and intrapersonal skills that come from leading your awareness at will empower you to make all the difference in your professional fluency.

CONCLUSION – THE IMPORTANCE OF INTRAPERSONAL SKILLS TRAINING

The active use of practical intrapersonal skills in the workplace will lay a sound foundation for your professional excellence and business success.

Leadership and initiative originate from good intrapersonal skills.

Interpersonal and intrapersonal skills go hand in hand because, without inner self-leadership skills, it is hard to secure healthy relations between people.

In case you would love to perceive healthy interpersonal relations, we heartily recommend you to take one of our intrapersonal skills e-training with your whole team. As a result, you will perceive improved mental wellness, productivity, and even employee engagement.