The official name for Human Design Gate 16 is The Gate of Skills . But I call it The Mastery Maven because its primary action is to be devoted to the mastery of your craft.
About Human Design Gate 16 – Gene Key 16 Archetype Name: The Mastery Maven
In Action: to be devoted to the master of your craft
Keywords: talent, skill, enthusiasm, and your commitment to mastery
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Official Gate Name: Skills
Human Design Definition: The great art of enriching life by the harmonic channeling of energy.
Core Theme: To skillfully master something.
Bodygraph Center: Throat center and connects to the Splenic center via human design gate 48 .
Tropical Sign: Gemini
Gene Keys Shadow: Indifference
Gene Keys Gift: Versatility
Gene Keys Siddhi: Mastery
The Positive and Negative Sides of Human Design Gate 16 All energy in the Human Design chart exists on a spectrum of potential .
On the “positive” end of the spectrum, Human Design Gate 16 is the energy for talent, skill, enthusiasm and the commitment to mastery. Gates 16 believes that practice does not make perfect – it makes mastery and the grit of mastery is infinitely more rewarding than perfection. With this attitude firmly in place, its make it’s mark in the world with the mastery of it’s craft.
On the other end of the spectrum, Human Design Gate 16 is the energy for perfectionism or hiding who you are as a result of unhealed shame. It can easily become obsessed with the “right” way to do things or waiting to “be ready” before starting things.
Start noticing when you are holding yourself back in shame but don’t be an asshole to yourself. Treat yourself the way you would a small child – with love, curiosity, and understanding.
My Personal Experience with Human Design Gate 16 (Gene Key 16) Both Human Design Gate 48 and Gate 16 are defined on the conscious side of my chart, creating the full channel of the wavelength.
The 16, in particular, is defined in my conscious moon in line 6.
Anytime we have a gate in line 6, we will go through three distinct phases with that energy in our lives. (You can read about the Human Design Profiles and Lines here .)
The first phase, from birth to the first Saturn Return (around age 28), looks more like a 3rd line. There are lots of mistakes and failed experiments. But, unlike the 3rd line, the 6th line mostly learns the emotional resilience skills necessary to“bounce back” from failure in the second phase.
The second phase begins at the first Saturn Return and lasts through the Chiron Return (around age 50). During this time, the 6th line goes “on the roof” to gain perspective, heal from the wounds of the first phase, and develop wisdom about their experiences.
By the third phase, after the Chiron Return, the sixth line steps into its role-model energy and becomes an embodiment of the wisdom it developed while on the roof.
These are the same phases anyone with a 6 in their profile will go through. If you have a 6 in your profile (3/6, 4/6, 6/2, 6/3), I will explain them in my post on profiles and lines .
These phases are not hard and fast rules, of course.
Because we are more than our Human Design, things like trauma, social structures, our capacity , and environment play huge roles in moving through life.
The sixth line, in particular, is very sensitive to social influence. In our current culture, we aren’t encouraged to step back from life to gather perspective. We are encouraged to go, do, be, and have all the things all the time.
Living by that conditioning can prolong the healing that needs to happen for any of the 6th line energies in our chart.
When I originally wrote this contemplation, I was 47 and still “on the roof” with all the line 6 energy in my chart. I am not a 6th-line profile; my profile is 5/2. But as I approach my Chiron Return, I can definitely feel the places in my chart where the 6th line is defined.
In gate 16, it has only been in the last few years that I’ve gained some perspective on old patterns of perfectionism and my obsession with getting things right.
Gate 48 plays perfectly into this. Its “lower” expression can become paralyzed because you believe that you don’t know enough.
So, when you combine the belief that you don’t know enough with the belief that you need to make everything perfect, you have the perfect storm of not creating much.
You end up going in circles, often reinventing the wheel, and never “feeling ready” to move forward.
This pattern became clear to me once I started my business in 2009.
I would literally obsess about everything I put out into the world.
One of the first coaching programs I ever developed was called Abundant Self Care , which included videos.
I had no experience filming or editing videos, and my inner perfectionist was running the show.
I genuinely believed I should be able to sit down, turn on the camera, say everything perfectly from memory, and upload the video without a single edit…on the first try.
And I was so mad and ashamed because that wasn’t how it went. Ever.
I remember talking to my business coach about it; she told me it was OK for it not to be perfect.
God rest her soul, she said something that changed my life:
“Done” is better than “perfect.”
She told me that it was more important to start helping people by just putting something out than never producing anything.
I will be forever grateful for her perspective and for how it started my deconditioning process around perfectionism.
I wish I could say I never struggle with perfectionism anymore, but that would be a straight-up lie.
I can still become obsessed over tiny details (Human Design Gate 9 ) and throw the baby out with the bathwater when things aren’t “just right.” True to gate 16 being defined in my moon, it is deeply intertwined with how I relate to my inner world.
I can’t even tell you how many times my inner perfectionist has told me that my work is shit and that I should burn it all down to the ground. Thankfully, I am surrounded by people who recognize me and can remind me as many times as it takes that my work is incredibly valuable to the world. And that perfection isn’t required, or even preferred, to be of deep service to others.
As I have gotten older, gained more perspective, and learned how to self-recognize, it is much easier to catch myself in those patterns and stop them in their tracks.
And I have even started to enjoy the process of practice and repetition (aka mastery).
I’ve come to embrace the idea of “b minus work,” letting others see me as not being perfect and putting things out into the world because they will help people rather than fluff up my ego.
At the end of the day, I can see that perfectionism is actually an epic waste of energy.
Perfectionism does nothing for the people I am here to help. It gets me all up in my head, bypassing the wisdom of my body and soul. And it completely blocks my ability to master anything.
And that is so good to know.
Affirmations for Human Design Gate 16 Using your Human Design to create affirmations is a powerful way to activate the full potential of your chart. Here are some affirmations for Gate 16:
I am making marks by mastering my craft.
Ready is a state of mind.
I transcend the status quo through mastery.
Now it’s your turn to contemplate Gate 16 When you stand in the truth that the gifts of gate 16 are always available to you (whether it’s defined in your chart or not)…
Do you struggle with perfectionism?
Are you willing to do things over and over again without shaming yourself for it?
What have you mastered and how did you do it? (Don’t get all perfectionistic and think that only huge accomplishments counts, everything counts.)
What do the things you’ve mastered tell you about the process of mastery? And how can you remind yourself of those things when you get stuck in perfectionism?
I encourage you to take some time with these questions. Take them out into your world and let their answers reveal themselves to you. Intend for deeper levels of clarity about gate 16.