Signing other than your name

When you sign something other than your name, say "Mum" or "Dad", the word takes on the same importance as the signature. However, the image is narrower in it's focus.

Whereas your entire signature is how you see yourself before the world, your signature of "Mum" shows only how you see yourself to your children.

The same, of course, goes for any other title, say "Grandpa" or "Grandma".

So if you have occasion to write either of these, look carefully at how you sign those titles in comparison to how you sign your actual name in general, and find out how differently you see yourself before these members of your family.

Of course, there is always the "what you see is what you get" signature, where it is just the real you, no image, that shows. In this case, one would expect to particular difference in the "Mom" etc title either.

However if there is a problem between you and the family member to whom you are writing this title, it will show in how you write it.

Naturally, all this applies to letters you receive from "titled" people as well as those you write.

More on signatures.

Obama's signature

This month's People Potentiality Newsletter, coming out on February 1st. 2009, gives an analysis of President Barack Obama's signature.

To sign up for the newsletter go to:
http://www.potentiality.biz/signup.htm
If you read this after February 1st., contact me and I will give you a link to the article.

For more on analyzing signatures check out the Signature Analysis Workbook.

Elaborate signature

When you find an extremely elaborate signature, where the body of the writing is not so overdone, you have found a writer who desperately wants attention.

If the individual is in show business, it may be that they need this to further their career, or it may be that they got into show business in the first place because of the need for recognition and attention.

But no matter who the person, or what the cause, a signature that seems designed just for display is someone who is saying "notice me."

If the writing, either in the signature or not, also has long tails on the ends of words, that swing upwards, ending above the height of the lower case letters, this is even more of a cry for attention.

Many people have these long, upward swinging final strokes and they enjoy recognition when they feel they have earned it. However when you couple it with a deliberately attention grabbing signature, you have someone who is demanding that you pay undue attention to them whether or not they have done something warranting approval.
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Signatures: what questions do you have?

Do you have any questions about what something in a signature means?

Send it with either a scan of the signature, or a detailed description and I will answer it in the blog. If you have signed up for the RSS feed you will be notified automatically when I post an answer.

Send your signature questions to
signaturequestions@gmail.com

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Changing your signature

If you feel like changing your signature and carefully creating a new one for yourself, do so.

How will that affect who you come across as in signature analysis?

Well, obviously that depends on what changes you make, but for you to be comfortable with your new signature, it will have to be compatible with who you are.

So it may look different to you, but analyze out the same. This is perfectly possible, and not at all uncommon.

Or you may have outgrown your previous signature. We all change as we go through life, and if you have changed in some way and your previous signature just doesn't feel right any more, then by all means create something that feels good.

If it comes easily to you after a bit of practice (to undo the habit of your old signature) and feels good, it means it reflects who you are now, so go for it.

Of course, if you change your signature noticeably, it is best to notify your bank and anywhere else where they compare signatures, but from the graphology perspective, it's OK to do anytime it feels right.

But I was taught to write this way...

We were all taught to write at one time. We were taught a particular style, depending on where we were living. We copied from books and from the teacher's writing, trying our best to make our writing look the same.

Fine. But what age were you then?

Do you still do everything else as you had to do it then?

No, of course you don't.

You have taken over your own life, kept what fitted, and discarded or changed the rest.

And so it is with your writing.

If you still have strokes in your writing the same as you were taught as a child, you have them because they fit who you are as a a person. The ones that didn't fit, you have changed.

Remember, you are not looking at the style of writing, but at the specific strokes within the writing.

I have often been told by people that they still write this way because they were taught to do it this way. And yet, upon looking at their writing, I have yet to find an adult who writes exactly in any way taught in schools.

So don't just think "I was taught" and instead look deeper. Look at each individual stroke, and find out what really ticks inside you. The only person who genuinely writes exactly like your teacher is your teacher.

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Sign on the dotted line - Signatures

Sometimes you will find, at the end of an official form, a line on which you are requested to sign your name.

How do you use that line?

Do you carefully sign on the line, making sure you start at the beginning and cram it in if necessary to finish by the end of the line?

If so, you are showing respect for authority and conventionality.

Do you sign somewhere around the line, but pay little attention to following it or where you finish, and perhaps even run your writing over some of the printed text nearby?

You are showing independence and something of an "I'll do it my way" mind set.

Want to read more on signatures?

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My signature changes

But my signature changes, you say.

Well, yes, we are not machines, and just as your behavior will change somewhat depending on your mood and situation, so will your writing.

Just as if I took a photo of you today and another of you tomorrow - they wouldn't be identical, but they would both still be recognizable as you.

So it is with your signature. Core personality traits will always remain the same, but your mood, your level of expression, the time and care given to the writing will all change how your signature looks.

But remember, when you are analyzing writing, you are not looking at the writing style, you are looking at strokes within the writing, and these will more or less stay the same.

If for example, your signature slants more to the right one day and more upright another, it just means that on the day you right slanted it you were feeling more outgoing, more emotionally responsive than on the day you wrote it upright.

It doesn't mean you weren't you on either of these days, it was just a different situation.

So don't worry if your signature, or any of your writing, is not the same all the time. This is known as being human!

For more on signatures check out the Signature Analysis Workbook.

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Be optimistic!

As we start the new year off, it's hard to be optimistic with all the doom and gloom coming over the airwaves. However things will be no better just because you are feeling down, so why not try to look ahead with hope.

No matter how black things are, there is always hope and by seeking it out, you will feel better and go farther.

Optmism can become an intergral part of your signature very easily.

Any writing that goes "uphill" from left to right, or a t-bar that does the same, shows optimism.

It's a pretty easy thing to incorporate into your signature, or into all of your writing for that matter.

And it has the power to help you feel more optimistic for two reasons.

One is that handwriting is body language, and just like if you go around all day every day with a big smile on your face, laughing and being upbeat, you will start to feel that way genuinely, in that same way, writing with optimism in your signature will give you the same type of a lift. You will begin to feel the uplift of your upslanting signature.

And the other reason is for you doubters, who really can't believe that the previous paragraph is true.

You now know that upslanting writing is optimism, so any time you write that way you are going to register in your mind that you learnt that this is so. So it becomes similar to an affirmation in that every time you write with an upslanting signature, you think to yourself "optimism".

So it works because handwriting can change your attitude and your trait preferences, and it works because it becomes an affirmation every time you write that way.

So as of today, start writing your signature "uphill" and if you have any lower case "t"s in your name, give them an upslanting t-bar.

You have nothing to lose by doing so, and a great deal to gain.

Here's more help on creating success for yourself in the coming year.

So here's to an optimistic 2009.

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