Let’s Go Exploring…
Why am I sitting here getting emotional over the results of a personality test?
They have become even more popular, of late, and I’m sure many of you have taken some form of personality test over the years. Maybe you’ve taken the DISC profile or strengths test. Maybe you identify yourself as a golden retriever, or maybe a lion.
Maybe you’re just an ostrich, who likes to put your head in the sand and not participate at all. Maybe you’re in the camp where you couldn’t care less about what you are, or maybe you change types every time you take a test. Maybe you want to find out more about yourself, but you’re just really cynical or skeptical at the thoroughness and accuracy of the hundreds of quizzes available over the interwebs. Or maybe you’ve taken one of the tests and it turned out absolutely wrong for who you think you are.
I have been hearing Enneagram and Myers-Briggs results bandied around lately as people proudly identify themselves and claim the traits associated with that identification, and they seem like pretty good, in-depth tests that analyze multiple traits, but until today, I hadn’t taken either one. I’d taken the quick, five-minute quizzes with animals or quadrants at various work and volunteer functions, and admittedly, my results had slightly changed over the years, and I felt like they were mostly accurate, but they were always missing something. I felt like they were too broad; too general.
I wasn’t sure just how accurate the free, online-based tests are, but I took the free version of both of my missing personality tests today and I am quite surprised at how thorough the questions were, and how accurately the results seem to describe me.
Cue the tears. Any time you gain a crucial piece of self-insight or self-awareness, it can be emotional, and that’s okay. Reading the words on a page that someone else wrote, seemingly exactly about me, and realizing it defines others as well, I felt a huge sense of relief and gratitude. There is an explanation as to why I am who I am, and I’m not alone. It helps me feel like there is an explanation to all the weird quirks of my personality that I have, over the years, learned to tolerate, although, not necessarily love.
I love how one commenter of my personality-type put it: “It explaines [sic] why I feel everyone else is in the Matrix and I took the red pill…”
After seeing the results of the tests, however, I am finding a strange loyalty to and affinity for the quirks I sometimes loathed, maybe simply because there is now a more logical, spelled-out explanation for their presence. Reading about the more positive traits I possess that I haven’t really been able to qualify is also interesting. It’s good to find that I have many good, even excellent qualities.
I have a sense of empowerment, and a newfound appreciation for myself as a whole, and I think that’s a very good thing. Now I want to figure out how to best utilize my strengths and not dwell on my weaknesses.
I would encourage you to take some of the more in-depth personality tests and explore who you are more. Greater understanding is always a good thing and can lead to greater appreciation and greater functionality.
Perspective. It can be very valuable. Would love to hear more!
Yes. Definitely.