People are afraid of the unknown but what if the “unknown about yourself” can be discovered?

One effective and widely accepted way of doing this is by learning about your personality type by taking a personality test. 16Personalities has a FREE 10-minute assessment that will tell you which personality “type” you have, based on the 16 personality types laid out by Myers &Briggs. The test result helps the individual learn more about their strengths, weaknesses, and truest nature. When learning more about your personality type, you’ll be able to clearly understand why you do the things you do and gain confidence in making decisions that are best aligned with yourself.

The test gives you a series of quick questions and categorizes your personality based on the levels you have of the following characteristics –

1)   introversion vs. extroversion

2)   sensing vs. intuition

3)   thinking vs. feeling

4)   judging vs. prospecting

You are then given a 4-letter sequence that categories you into one of each of the options for all 4 points (example: ISTJ means Introversion, Sensing, Thinking, Judging).

The 16 different personality types are: ITSJ, ISFJ, INFJ, INTJ, ISTP, ISFP, INFP, INTP, ESTP, ESFP, ENFP, ENTP, ESTJ, ESFJ, ENJT

You can take the personality test for free here: https://www.16personalities.com/

There’s a lot more to personality types than just being an introvert or an extrovert and knowing your personality type can give you an edge in your personal and professional life.

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Three main benefits are:

1)   Knowing strengths and weaknesses

-      Everyone likes to do things differently; it helps you better understand the WHY behind your actions and the actions of those around you. From this point, you can figure out HOW to best work with them.

-      Knowing strengths allows you to use them to your advantage (in work and relationships).

-      Identifying weaknesses can help you see how they interfere with your life, and then you can begin to look for ways to work with your weaknesses in a way that makes sense to you and your needs.

2)   Understanding your feelings and actions

-      It gives you signs as to why certain people think or feel in a certain way and why and how you think or feel is different fr them.

-     Knowing your personality type is key to understanding your deepest and truest self.

-     Cracking the “why” helps you feel more at ease with yourself and to be open and accepting of other people’s ways of thinking.

-     Knowing yourself helps you understand that there's nothing wrong with you! Everyone’s brain works differently and it helps put that fact into a perspective of non-judgment to yourself and to those around you.

3)   Learn to control your emotions/ learn what your emotions are trying to tell you

-      We all react differently to stress, conflict, and other circumstances in life.

-      Knowing personality type will help you predict how you will react to certain situations. Example: If you are an extroverted type of person and you are stressed you will likely want to be around other people in social situations to help mitigate that stress, however, if you are more of an introverted personality type, social situations won’t allow for the same kind of relief. As an introverted person, you’ll want some alone time and you’ll be more likely to hold onto your emotions and not let them out the way that extroverts do.

Learning about your Meyers-Briggs personality type can tell you a lot about yourself, but it can also tell you a lot about those around you as well. “To better understand the people whom, you work with interact with, goto family gatherings with, fight with, date, marry, take care of, pretty much anyone you have social interaction with.” (MBTIonline.com)

By understanding what your personality IS, you also learn what your personality is NOT, which can be equally if not more helpful and allow you to see yourself and those around you in a deeper, more meaningful way.

“Understanding personality types also allows for a language to be used to talk about differences in what energizes you, how you make decisions, how you take in information, and more.” (MBTionline.com)

It gives you self-awareness and others-awareness, ultimately leading to your personal and professional growth. It’s a wonderful tool to help enhance your daily life.

Take the quiz and check back next month to read about which time management style is best for you based on your personality type!