Our society often forces us to pick one thing. Are we a girl or a boy? Are we sporty or artistic? Are we shy or outgoing? This practice leaves little room for the grey area, which is where most of us reside.
Extrovert or introvert is another one of these categories we are asked to identify with. Again, the truth is far more of us exist in the middle of this continuum rather than on one extreme or the other. Adam Grant at Wharton has done some interesting research into this.
Part of the challenge with being asked to identify with one or the other for so long is that for ambiverts like myself, our default method of recharging is whichever extreme of the continuum we decided to identify with. For me that was extrovert. I thought that I needed to be an extrovert to be successful and so I went with that one and I built how I show up in the world around it. As I'm embracing my full ambivertness, I'm having some difficulty figuring out how to consistently recharge.
Is it alone time? Social time? Giving back? Or watching a movie or reading a book just for me? The challenge is it's all of the above. I'm just trying to figure out the right time to pick any given one of these.
As I was doing some ambivert related research, I did stumble across the below. Perhaps my issue is that during this period of growth I'm not getting my daily intake of hugs.
Being a Force for Good 