The Truth About Personality Test
The truth about personality test is that nothing magical is going to happen right after you take one. It’s simply a fact that there is nothing magical about a personality test. A personality test is not going to tell you what to do with your career or your life. Moreover, 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 a personality test is overpromising and is guaranteed to underdeliver. These are the people who give personality test a bad name.
However, just because there is no magic in a personality test doesn’t mean that getting an honest assessment of yourself can’t change your life. What makes a personality test delightful is when you use it to help you with the “how” instead of the “what”.
The best “how” for you is going to be different than the best “how” for me which is going to be different from any other person’s best “how”. This is what makes each of us unique in how we reach the best version of ourselves. Two people can have the same goals, but it’s how they go about reaching those goals that will be different.
Personality Test are for the “How” Not the “What”
This is how a personality test can help you. 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 out of it.