Article by Laveena Archers
This BG5 article is the second in our Career Type series that can help you comprehend your unique career type. We recommend you read the complete set to improve your understanding so that you can work more efficiently and achieve better results.
In this BG5 Career Type Article, we’re going to focus on the Classic Builder, one of the most vital and numerous of the career types. (Not sure what Type you are? Click here to get a free BG5 sample report and discover yours now!)
Knowing your career type empowers you with a straightforward tool for decision-making. It’s a core component of how to make choices you trust to use your precious energy in the right way, a way aligned with your natural strengths, talents, and gifts.
It’s vital to your well-being and overall work-life balance to operate in alignment with your physical capabilities.
How to Avoid the Classic Builder Career Type Pitfalls
Do you feel like you want to quit? Want to know why?If you’re a Classic Builder, do you feel stuck in a job where you can’t seem to get ahead despite working hard? Are you profoundly frustrated or unsatisfied with how you spend your time and energy?
The reason for this discomfort and dissatisfaction comes down to misusing your energy resources. Your BG5 career type gives you a decision-making strategy that tells you how to utilize your energy most healthfully. As a Classic Builder, you use your power most effectively when you provide the strength to move your passion projects along, to build and create in response to what your life asks you to do.
You can only “go, go, go!” healthfully if you’re doing something that feels meaningful and satisfying to you personally. What you do helps you discover who you are – for yourself. So if you do things for others that are not in response, for whatever reason, you are eventually going to end up with challenges.
Saying yes to everything a particular person asks for because of whatever role they play in your life and subjugating your own needs for the sake of external validation (their approval) is just one example of how you can be led off track.
Ignoring your body’s response and slaving away at something you don’t enjoy can quickly burn out your generative energy, and even if you do manifest something, it won’t feel deeply rewarding or satisfying. You could force yourself to “go, go, go” in unhealthy ways by doing things that you don’t enjoy.
Do you find that your career isn’t entirely satisfying or as materially successful as it could be? If you’re doing things that you’re not designed to do, saying yes because of outside forces and having a hard time saying no, or if you’re preoccupied with doing a lot of “busy work” that is not personally rewarding, likely it’s because you’re not following your gut responses. If you have the additional strategy of Waiting for Clarity, you need to feel out your responses over a period of time.
Can you recognize that your satisfaction depends on doing the work you love and loving the work that you do? Your life’s work is vitally important to your overall health and your overall well-being. If you are not doing what you like to do and loving what you do, your health eventually will suffer.
How to Know the BG5 Classic Builder Career Type
There are two types of Builders: Classic Builders and Express Builders. This article focuses specifically on Classic Builders.
Classic Builders can express pure, consistent power, a generative vitality in answer to what life asks of them. Often their response is a guttural sound or a sensation that emanates from the core of their being. Builders “come alive” through response, providing significant energy to move projects along to completion.
If you’re a Builder, you are designed to enjoy the process of getting things done that you enjoy doing in a step-by-step process. Do only the things your body responds to with energy and vitality! Builders are people who enjoy using their life-force in a process that is aligned with their passions.
If you are a Classic Builder, you’re part of 35% of all Builders who are gifted with a natural built-in generative vitality that knows through response what they have the energy to do. Your career type allows you to go, go, go—and do, do, do IF you are aligned with work that lights you up inside.
Your outlet is your passion, your creative life-force in response, the work that you enjoy doing. It’s a source of powerful regenerative energy for you. Plugging into this outlet daily until you run out of juice at the end of the day helps you to sleep soundly and revitalizes you for another day of satisfyingly spending your energy in alignment with your purpose.
No matter what Career Type you are, there are grave consequences for not using your energy correctly. Not using your power successfully leads to health issues like chronic overwhelm, depression, stress-related ailments, exhaustion, burnout and overall unhappiness.
How Classic Builders Best Use Energy for Maximum Results
In our last article, we reminded you of a grave problem in our workplaces. Many people slave away at a job they hate – trapped in their own mind’s justifications for why they “have to” do the work they do and cannot choose to do what they love to do. BG5 helps solve today’s critical issue of Employee Engagement.
How can you as a Classic Builder use your power correctly?
The QUALITY of how you use your energy is essential. Your gut tells you, moment to moment, what it has the power to do.
As a Classic Builder, that natural source of generative energy is designed to be entirely used up with activities you enjoy, every day. You are intended to be able to go, go, go only in response to what life asks of you – not what your mind thinks you “have to do” “should do,” or are “supposed to do” no matter what reasons it gives you.
The energy with which you commit yourself to a project or endeavor flavors the entire experience. If you’re following your gut response to use your power in a practical, productive way, in a way that brings you an internal feeling of satisfaction, you can build a meaningful life.
How to Comprehend a Classic Builder’s “Response-ability”
Each Classic Builder has a unique purpose he or she is here to fulfill. Their strength can be tapped into for their personal satisfaction through following their gut response from moment to moment, no matter what fears or reasons their mind might use to persuade them not to follow their body’s innate intelligence.
What does the Builder’s response feel like?
Here, in their own words, are some answers from Classic Builders:
“I’m not saying that my experience is everyone’s experience, but this is my personal experience. I have this feeling that my gut response is almost literally pulling me forward if it’s a yes or pushing me away if it’s a no…. It’s physically something that I get excited about, something that I can feel. It’s that sort of excitement, that kind of gut feeling of like, ‘Ohh yes, yes I want to do it,’ or ‘Hmm, not really.’ Those are a couple of ways that I feel it physically.”
~Karen Sherwood, Classic Builder, Wait For Clarity Decision-Making Strategy
“My Gut response feels like a happy, excited feeling in my belly, and if it is a very strong response, as it was when finding BG5, it is really like butterflies in my stomach kind of excitement. That is if the response is YES! Now it I do not have a Gut response if it is a NO, it feels off in my stomach, kind of as a knot in my stomach. Usually, I get a lot of mind chatter with it as to why I should or shouldn’t do it. Whereas with a clear YES I just KNOW instantly I want to do it without having any clear good reasoning to it.”
~Nathalie Keijzer, Classic Builder, Wait to Respond Decision-Making Strategy
“When I first heard about having a ‘gut response’ I wasn’t sure what that felt like. It took some time to really ‘get’ it. Now I know when something is right for me or not, by paying attention to my energy. It has become a real body-experience. When it’s a ‘no,’ it feels like a brake is being put on internally; my energy goes down and I can physically feel my body moving away from whatever it is that is offered. However, if it’s a ‘yes,’ it feels like my body moves forward; there is an openness to want to engage with what I’m responding to.”
~ Marije Miller, Classic Builder, Wait for Clarity Decision-Making Strategy
“I feel like a magnet pulls me somewhere. I feel the energy to do something, what the asking is about.”
~ Ksenia Balitskaya, Wait to Respond Decision-Making Strategy
Two Helpful Classic Builder Keys for Maximum Satisfaction
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How do you know if you’re on-track or off? When it comes to using your energy correctly, owning your uniqueness, communication and what you’re broadcasting, an essential guidepost for each Career Type helps us know when we’re on-track and when something’s off.
Classic Builder On-track: Satisfaction
How do you know if you’re transmitting static or clear communication? The simple answer is if it feels right, you’re on-track. Each Career Type has a signpost of how that consistently shows up. For you as a Classic Builder, the signpost is Satisfaction.
From the Classic Builder’s perspective:
“If you’re a Builder, when you’re utilizing your energy properly, there is a deep sense of satisfaction. There is nothing more wonderful as a Builder than to lay down at the end of the day after doing what you love with a deep feeling of satisfaction, thinking, ‘Wow, look at all I accomplished today,’ I love that feeling. The more aware I have become of my unique design as a classic Builder, the more profound I can feel that satisfaction.”
~ Karen Sherwood, Classic Builder, Wait for Clarity Decision-Making Strategy
“Satisfaction is an awesome feeling. Recently I rearranged a class of the BG5 Foundation Course, and with my Strength of Concentration, I was focused on it over 12 hours straight. Well, I had lunch and dinner, but I was enjoying the process of perfecting and making the material logical and understandable for students so much that I forgot about time and didn’t have anything to eat in between. And then when I finally finished in the middle of the night, I had such a Satisfying feeling. I was very tired but went to bed with a big, big smile and anxious to teach the class and see if my students could take in and assimilate this rather profound information in a digestible way. It was really tiring but utterly satisfying to work on something I love doing! I feel it in my entire body like a buzz of energy.”
~ Nathalie Keijzer, Classic Builder, Wait to Respond Decision-Making Strategy
“Satisfaction feels like being in the flow, a sense of inner joy. It is a sense of being engaged with something that I enjoy. It doesn’t necessarily mean that everything is running smoothly. But even the issues that may come up feel ‘interesting’ or worth my energy.”
~ Marije Miller, Wait to Respond and Wait for Clarity Decision-Making Strategy
“I’ve done something really great. I get tired, but I am happy. I don’t feel boredom anymore. Because I was good at my project!”
~ Ksenia Balitskaya, Wait to Respond Decision-Making Strategy
Classic Builder Frustration
Classic Builder Off-track: Frustration
If it feels terrible (imagine the sensation of trying to move through hip-deep mud – and you hate being dirty!), you’re off-track. One of the gifts of knowing your Career Type is owning the signpost of being off-track. Frustration is like the bumps in the middle or the sides of a road that warn you it’s time to correct your course or your career, or else your health may be in jeopardy!
From the Classic Builder’s perspective:
“There is frustration when I try to make or force things to happen when they’re not happening in the way that I want them to happen, and when I want them to happen now, but they’re not happening in my time frame. I push harder, and this pushing only leads to more frustration.”
~ Karen Sherwood, Classic Builder
Karen advises that in those times of frustration, we learn to relax and let go of any attachment – especially any expectations we have about the outcome.
“A funny thing happens when I do that. Somehow, one way or another, things seem to work out on their own. Either the situation goes away or changes because it was not correct in the first place, or I finally become open to new stimulus to respond to that points me in the right direction.”
~ Karen Sherwood, Classic Builder, Wait to Respond and Wait for Clarity Decision-Making Strategy
“Frustration is annoying. It gets in the way, or rather is a result of something not working out. I get frustrated if I cannot make something work if I cannot figure something out. Frustration feels different. It is higher up in my body than satisfaction which is more grounding. With frustration I can feel my breath be high up and sometimes my upper body contracts and it is tense. Sometimes also I get a headache when it is something I have been concentrating and focused on for too long and still could not figure it out.”
~ Nathalie Keijzer, Classic Builder, Wait to Respond Decision-Making Strategy
“Frustration to me is being on the wrong path. It feels like wading through molasses… We all have things that we don’t really want to do but have to, sometimes. When those come up for me, I have to push myself through an inner resistance. It’s very uncomfortable. It takes a lot of my energy, and I’m always glad to be done with them. There is no ‘savoring the process’ in those experiences.”
~ Marije Miller, Classic Builder, Wait for Clarity Decision-Making Strategy
“If I feel frustration it means something is wrong. I need to stop and look back to my activity. It’s a place I lost my energy. Why? And Where? I should understand deeper the process before I start doing something else.”
~ Ksenia Balitskaya, Wait to Respond Decision-Making Strategy
Questions to Contemplate: Classic Builder Career Satisfaction
Do you have a few minutes for a Self-Discovery exercise?
Get your phone and put it on a 10-minute timer. If you have difficulty doing this alone, doing this exercise with a friend or co-worker who knows you may help. Ask them to ask you the questions below, and modify the questions to what they know of you. Have them ask you yes/no questions about your interests and your life.
If you have Wait for Clarity as a decision-making strategy, try doing this again but spaced out over a week or two to see how your responses change.
What are you most passionate about doing?
What could you do all day without feeling frustrated?
What gives you so much satisfaction in your work that you would enjoy doing it even if you didn’t get paid?
Can you imagine living your life doing what you love and getting paid for it?
Come to our Classic Builder Collaborative Webinar to learn, share and grow with others of this Career Type.
