If You Love Freedom, You May Need More Structure

I have always resisted the concept of structure. Significantly.

I swear, even the word process has been hard for me to digest. To me, it has always felt restrictive. A slightly more professional way of telling me there was one right way to do something, and that I had to follow it….which I did not enjoy.

For many, many, many years, I assumed structure and freedom sat at opposite ends of the table.

It wasn’t until I started working more deeply with my core values, and became educated as a practitioner in Insights Discovery and DISC personality and communication profiling, that I began to understand what might really be behind my resistance.

Freedom is always my number one core value. Always has been. No matter how many times I revisit my values, it remains firmly at the top. And when I took a deeper dive into my personality profile, it reinforced that need for freedom even more.

My mind and decision-making are naturally influenced by these conscious and less-conscious parts of who I am. Any structure forced upon me felt like an absence of freedom or choice. It felt rigid and inflexible, and quite honestly, stifling.

Freedom, to me, means having room to move, respond and follow an idea. My brain processes quickly and in multiple directions, often all at once (hello overthinking tendencies). To be clear, that does not automatically make the output of my work accurate. But it does mean my thinking moves at pace. It’s creative, it’s explored and it’s usually fun.

My personality lends itself to a freeing way of thinking. Which is hugely ironic, because my husband is the complete opposite. He thrives in structure and process, while I thrive in creative chaos. Thankfully, this works beautifully for us.

However, becoming an Insights Discovery and DISC practitioner also exposed what we might call the shadow sides of my personality. These are the traits and behaviours we would sometimes prefer to leave hidden in the dark.

I remember reading one of the watch-out statements in my profile: “On a bad day, Nicole always has to be right.” My immediate response was, “No I don’t.” Which was, of course, exactly the point.

It was a tough pill to swallow, but also a profound moment. If my profile could expose something I had instantly denied, while I was actively proving it, what else might be obvious to other people but still hidden from me?

Apparently, one of those things was my resistance to structure. The profile highlighted how that resistance might actually hold me back. Another statement told me that “consistency was my friend.” My natural magpie brain, which likes shiny things and several directions at once, did not initially enjoy this news.

To be clear, a personality profile is not a definition of your identity. It is a tool that can help you explore parts of yourself you may not have considered. For me, the need for consistency was one of those areas I needed to discover.

Over time, I began to reflect on and reframe what structure meant to me. I realised there is a significant difference between structure imposed upon us and structure we consciously choose to support what matters to us.

For example, I protect my mornings wherever possible. Ideally, I don’t have calls, coaching sessions or delivery work before 10 a.m. That boundary gives me time to move at the pace I need before doing my best work. It doesn’t restrict my freedom. It helps make that freedom possible.

In my own business, I have a sequential process for taking ideas, concepts and thoughts and turning them into multiple outputs of work.

In my other business, where I have two business partners, we have a process for taking a client need and creating an output unique to them. That process is not there to make us all work in exactly the same way. It allows us to lean into our individual strengths. We have a wonderful partnership where we each bring something valuable and different to the table. There is a true and authentic purpose for all of us within it.

I also have structures in my personal life that support my health and wellbeing.

None of these areas are regimented. They are intentional, yet flexible, the perfect blend for me.

This idea came through beautifully in my recent podcast conversation with Pei Ling Lo, founder of The Art of Structure. When I asked Pei what structure meant to her, she described it as creating “parameters for exploration.”

Those are Pei’s words, and I love them. It was a mic drop type moment, where my expression shifted in great excitement.

Because parameters do not have to fill every available space. They can create enough direction for us to move with intention while still leaving room to respond, experiment and explore. The space is part of the structure.

That distinction has helped me understand why some forms of structure support me while others create such strong resistance. Perhaps those of us who struggle with structure do not resist structure itself. Perhaps we resist structures that were never designed with us in mind.

I still don’t want every hour of my day organised. That would be my idea of hell. But I have discovered that some structure supports me in reaching my goals. It creates the consistency my natural personality does not always provide on its own. And because it is consciously chosen, it works with my need for freedom rather than against it.

Leaving deliberate space around structure makes me cherish and value the need for it.

In this week’s podcast, Pei Ling and I explore how we can create structure that is individual to our needs, work with the way we naturally operate and give ourselves permission to build a life that actually works for us.

If, like me, you have previously or currently struggled with the concept of structure, I think this conversation might help you see it a little differently.