Blogs that grow yourself & your business Using your human Design

How to read your human design chart and make practical sense of it for your life and business

Human Design & Business

June 26, 2024•9 min read

We often feel like we’re chasing, forcing, and pushing in our business for two reasons:

We model our work on someone else's energy type, which means we’ve given part of our power to someone else.

We’ve been conditioned to act and think a certain way based on how we were raised.

When we work against how we’re designed to work, we face a lot of resistance.

That resistance can show up as:

Procrastination on revenue-generating actions
Procrastination on business-growth actions

Fighting resistance leads to more inconsistency, mental burnout, mental exhaustion, and worsening situations. (and your engagement and revenue numbers reflect) because you're using your mental, emotional and physical energy to "fight" through whatever your resisting then you also use more energy to then do the thing you need to do!

When things feel more in flow and alignment, consistency becomes easy.

If you want to get to the point and answer,

"How do I apply this to my business now?" then figure out the deeper stuff along the way. Here's how you read your Human Design chart in order:

Energy Type (how to engage and enter into things in life and work)
Authority (how you make decisions)
Not-Self & Signature (your compass for right or wrong direction)
Profile (the character you play or your “brand” presence)
Energy Centers (your open and non-open centers that help you manage your energy)
Channels (your gifts and talents)
Planets (your theme and direction based on the planet’s energy)
Gates (specific traits you have in each energy center)

Channels, Planets, Gates can go in depth and each require it's separate blog article, the purpose of this blog is to get you going quickly so we'll focus on the others.

reading your chart

Your chart gives you the specifics of how you best operate. You can have two people with the same energy type but they both operate differently according to the specifics in their chart.

If you got your chart from my site then you should have gotten an email with the full report that explains the best market based on your Energy Type and your overall brand theme then SKIP to the Energy Center’s section.

If you haven’t yet click here to get the chart and email on the report.

It’s important to note that everything in Human Design has a low expression of your energy and a high expression of your energy. In this blog I’m speaking from a place of your high expression.

Strategy & Authority

Your strategy and authority is the foundation of how you work.

This is how you are with the world and in business.

It’s how you enter into things, and each energy type is different. And your Authority is how you’re designed to make decisions so you know what to choose to start, what to invest in etc…

In Human Design, our minds help us organize information, ask the questions, and frame the information into concepts. Then it’s our body that makes the decisions based on your Authority.

This is a foreign concept for most entrepreneurs because we’ve been conditioned to think things through and make decisions from the mind.

Which, if you think back, there were instances where you made decisions from the body (based on how you make decisions) and it worked out in the end, and where you made decisions from the mind which likely led to more chaos which led to more problem solving.

It’s explained more in your personal full report, if you haven’t gotten that get it here.

Not-Self and Signature

The not-self is your theme emotion when things are not aligned and you’re starting to go in the wrong direction. It’s not what you feel ALL the time, but it’s what you feel the majority of the time.

This is also a sign when we start operating out of energy centers that are open which quickly drag us to being the “not-self” or shadow side of ourselves.

A common Not-Self operation is operating with “will” from our ego center when it’s open (no color to the shape)

Having an open center that drives us to overachieve and put our hands up to do things even when we’re already maxed or don’t really want to do it.

But we do this because we seek validation from others and ourselves to ‘feel’ accomplished.

Compared to those who have a defined ego/will center (represented by the colored in shape) they have access to that energy and are willing to put up boundaries and say no (if at high expression)

The Signature is the theme feeling you have when things are aligned and going in the right direction for you. It’s the consistent feeling you’re after in your business.

Profile

The profile is like the character you’re playing as you go through your business. It’s your brand presence, it’s the energy you are putting out.

You’ll notice two numbers in your profile like, 5/1, or 1/3, or 2/6.

The first number is the conscious character you’re playing that you’re aware of, and the second number is the unconscious character you're playing that you may or may not be aware of.

In your marketing and sales it’s important to connect with the character because that’s the natural energy you put out on others, and the more you can embody your profile in your marketing and sales, the more aligned you will feel and when you put out content, the more it will start to attract the right people because you’re operating from an aligned and authentic energy.

Energy Centers

The shapes on the bodygraph chart are your energy centers based on the Chakra system.

Each shape represents an energy you have or is fluid and is affected by the environment or other people.

When you see a shape colored in, this means you have access to that energy like flipping on a switch.

When you see a white shape that is known as an “Open” center or “Undefined” center which means it’s fluid, and can change depending on the environment or people you surround yourself with.

Note that there is no good or bad, if we have access to that energy or not, it just means we experience that energy differently and knowing this allows you to understand how to set yourself up to access the energy centers and manage your state to express at high expression.

Gates

Inside the energy centers you have these numbers, these are “gates” which are a trait and expression of each of the energy centers.

If you have some coloured in that means you have access to that trait within that energy center.

If you have a gate that’s circled in an open center (not colored in) that means you have inconsistent access to that trait and is mostly activated or influenced based on the people you’re around or the environment you’re in.

When not circled in, it means you don’t have access to that trait and it can come and go.

Channels

Next, you’ll notice the lines in between the energy centers (shapes) . These are called channels which are two gates connected together.

When you have this, these are the talents and gifts you have.

You’ll see some lines are filled in, some are half filled in and some are empty.

The filled in ones means you have access to that gift anytime you want, half filled means you’re missing the other half and you’ll naturally pull in people who are missing the other half.

Blank channels means you don’t have consistent access to it which means you experience it through the environment or people.

When it comes to channels, focus on your full channels (the full solid lines) for fastest results.

Planets

Each planet represents an energy, and your theme, you’ll see on your chart there are two sides, a “Design” side and a “Personality” side.

The Design side means it’s unconscious so you may or may not be aware of it and the Personality side is what you're conscious of.

These would be the last thing to focus on as they will naturally unfold as long as you follow your strategy, authority and embody your Energy type, profile and talents.

However, in a coaching scenario I bring these in to help align these with your offer and how you operate.

In business,

I’ve broken down the planets in groups for your offer, how you best handle problems and potential future challenges, as well as a brand message theme.

Your Offer alignment is based on:

Sun (the very first planet at the top) - which what you’re here to do
Moon - what motivates you
Jupiter - What traits you must lean into to become more magnetic
Uranus - how you’re meant to be different and unique

Handling problems and chaos in your business so you can grow:

Earth - What grounds you
North Node - The common challenge you must overcome
Pluto - Where you’ll experience the greatest challenges to experience transformation
Saturn - Where you have to take responsibility for your actions

Brand message theme

Mercury - what you’re here to communicate

Each of these planets you’ll see a number in them like “54.1” this represents what “Gate” and what “Profile Line” you experience that planet's theme from.

Don’t get confused and try to apply everything!

Human Design has a lot of layers, to make this the most practical for you to follow the order I’ve provided.

Focus on it for a couple of weeks by experimenting with it in your business. Then move on to the next.

As you do this everyone builds on top of each other and you’ll start feeling, and seeing this difference leading to that signature feeling you want with your business.