I’ve been working on personal development since I was 11 years old and realised that I wanted to be someone I could be proud of. I really didn’t know it was called personal development at the time. All I knew was that there were things and people’s behaviours around me I was observing and experiencing that I didn’t like. I wanted to do what I could for myself, to ensure that my behaviour and outlook on life were different from what I could see.
I’ve continued working on my own self-development since then. Sometimes getting it not so right, but always learning and taking responsibility for my life and decisions. One of the things I’ve grown to like and use often are personality measurements. There are some good ones out there and some not so good. And all are left to the individual’s acceptance or not of what each report offers.
I’m working on a partnership currently and one of the things we looked at was our personality preferences: how we communicate, how we prefer to receive information, how we deal with conflict, and other things. One of the tools I use is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. I use this for myself and to support my clients individually, within teams, and in organisations. I became a practitioner and coach many years ago and thoroughly enjoy using the tool.
I took a look at my own report again. I hadn’t looked at it since 2020. That was the last time I’d completed the report for myself. People do change slightly as they progress through their lives, and I wanted to see if I had changed any since the last time, some years prior, I had completed this report. I found that I had changed slightly and that was really interesting.
However, going back to the partnership. Reflecting on drawing up this agreement made me look again at my own MBTI report. I had to smile. I’m not sure if this resonates with you, but there are times when I wonder, ‘Am I doing what I should be doing?’ or ‘Why am I so interested in certain things and not others?’ Looking at my own report always answers these types of questions for me.
It’s all about my preferences and values. Note, these can be changed but only when we become aware of what they are, consider if they are working for us and decide to work on changing them if they are not.
The revisiting of my MBTI report on communication was a reminder of my preferences in this area and a calming answer for my focus. So, in case you’re wondering, I am ENFP. So, I have preferences in my communication style for focusing on the outer world of people and activity. I tend to take in information from patterns, the big picture and focus on future possibilities (great problem solver and creating possibilities). My decisions are made primarily on values and on subjective evaluation of person-centred concerns and tend to like a flexible and spontaneous approach to life, wanting to keep my options open.
I shared this with my family, and no one was surprised. I reflected on my business endeavours, decisions, and approach and found this to be so on the button. Every type has its downsides but focusing on understanding myself has enabled me to create higher levels of satisfaction in my life. It has also given me a greater level of awareness of those downsides.
Would you like to gain greater clarity on what makes you tick and why? Would you like to better understand how to bring a higher level of personal satisfaction to your life and business? Drop me a line. I would be pleased to support you in answering these questions, not for anyone else, but for you, to help you understand what you need to get the best from yourself. And want you seem to want things in a certain way.
The first step to self-development is getting to know you better. Let’s start the journey from here.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.