Personality is one of the invisible factors in human relationships I always talk about. In most cases, we’re not aware of this and understand personality merely as traits.

photo credit: Malin Helene

However, traits can always be present when the need calls for it. For instance, you might be at the workplace that needs you to be serious and logical even though by nature you are a fun loving person. Traits are often stronger and more dominant as a result of habituation and skill training.

Type, on the other hand will be different. According to many different sources, our personality development begins in the womb and stabilizes at the age of around 14 years. Personality Type, therefore, refers to the personality component of you that is unchanging.

The only way to access this is to take an MBTI personality test and ensure that you are in a relaxed mental environment. This is important because if you are under pressure (in legal terms, ‘duress’), it can significantly change your behavior. That doesn’t measure your core personality – it merely measures the effect of the environmental pressure.

By taking the test, you get a chance to know yourself from a psychological point of view and the facets of accommodation you need to make in order to adapt better in the workplace and live a more energized and fulfilling life.

So a number of people have asked me about personality tests and whether they are useful. Here’s some tips to bear in mind if you have never taken a personality test yourself.
photo credit: Kevin Steinhardt

• Don’t take a test that is unvalidated. You need to know the source of your test and make sure it’s credible. But beyond the test, you need to know that your administrator can give you added value. For instance, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) can be useful, but not all administrators are made equal.
• Be prepared to be honest with yourself. A lot of times when I conduct personality assessments, people don’t take their test results seriously. In fact, many would tend to think of it as just an ‘interesting thing’ rather than something that can improve the quality of their life. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator does provide quite a fair bit of insight not just on an overall scale (which I used to believe it did) but it continues to improve the impact of the tool through the numerous research papers that espouse its use.
• Use it for self-improvement. Understanding your results and charting a direction based on what you know are two totally different things. A decent personality test such as the MBTI can reveal so much about you that you have overlooked, that it could literally be life changing. The only difference is that you have to be serious about making plans to move yourself toward the desired direction.

For more information about the MBTI, just place your questions in the comments below and I’ll answer them. If you are keen on taking the test, fill it in the comments box (but it will not be published) and I will contact you to conduct and debrief the test for you.