Personality Tests are Useless When You Make This False Assumption
Personality tests are not useless. But many people think personality tests are useless. These are the same people who take one or more personality assessments then think something magical is going to happen. Unquestionably, there is nothing magical about a personality test.
However, just because there is no magic doesn’t mean that getting an honest assessment of yourself can’t change your life. The problem is assuming the results of a personality test will tell you what to do. In fact, this assumption is the main reason why personality tests are so useless to so many people.
The point of taking a personality test is not to tell you what to do with your career or your life. A personality test is not going to help you find purpose in life either. Anyone who tells you they can provide those type of results using an assessment is overpromising and is guaranteed to underdeliver.
The fact is, as long as you look to assessments to tell you what to do you will be disappointed. On the other hand, if you use assessments to help you with the “how”, you will be quite delighted. This is the trick to making personality tests useful. The “how” for you is going to be different than the “how” for me. This is what makes you unique.
For example, many people are writers. Some write fiction and some write non-fiction. Some people do interviews to help them write and some people use research from books. Moreover, some people get motivation by going on group writing retreats and some people prefer to write in isolation. All of these are examples of how your personality dictates how you execute the process of becoming an author.
If someone is an extrovert with the “woo” StrengthsFinder strength, but tries to write a book by doing research isolated in the library, they will struggle. On the other hand, if that same person were to write that same book using group writing retreats and by interviewing firsthand subjects, the process would be a breeze.
Simply stated, using personality test to help you know yourself better is just a starting point. You must take that knowledge and apply it to how you get work done to get the most of it.