Today I want to share with you what I think is a very useful tool. It may or may not work for you, but it was shockingly accurate for me! So, I just thought I’d share it with you, in the hope that you’ll also give it a try with an open mind.
Actually my previous post was inspired by the results of this tool itself, which is basically about identifying a person’s “personality type”.
If you’ve already heard about this categorization / classification scheme and don’t happen to believe in the same, please bear with me for just a moment before you shoot my head off for propagating such malarkey!
Personality type is basically a psychological classification of different types of individuals. There’s not a single scheme that claims to do this classification. You can read this Wikipedia page for more context and technical details on this.
It is one of these schemes, the “16 Personality Factors” (or Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, 16PF) that I want to talk to you about.
I took this test at 16personalities.com and was amazed by the results! I was classified as an
“INFP”. I won’t go into the details of what that “type” means (you can read about that here), but I would like to mention that I was absolutely amazed by how accurate that result was. I couldn’t have expressed my own personality better than how they were able to.
I think it’s a great tool to know about oneself. And if you are willing to put in the effort to understand the underlying principles on which it is built, it can help you identify the personalities of others as well, even without them having to take the test. All you need is a little power of observation.
Knowing one’s personality type is another form of knowledge of oneself, and I’ve already covered the immense benefits that knowledge can provide. And if one can others’ personality type as well, then they can add real value to their relationships, and provide opportunities to connect where none existed.
For example: You might think that your colleague, who keeps asking questions about a plan that you are proposing, is trying to undermine you by trying to pick holes in your plan. However, she just might be an ENTP type personality. According to the theory, people of this type are just naturally inclined to have thorough logical discussions, even debates, to fully understand and come up with the correct way to approach things, without any other ulterior motives (like undermining the plan for personal benefits or out of jealousy). Once you are aware of this side to their personality, you can view their resistance in the right light, without taking things personally and escalating the issue, and instead, you both may actually come up with a much better plan.
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And now for the skeptics: Initially, I, too, had doubts about how such a generic classification scheme could work. There are, after all, more than seven billion people in the world. How could all of them be classified into just 16 categories?! Of course, this had to be bogus and just another way to lure suckers in.
But, after seeing my own results, and how accurately it understood and predicted what I felt like, and how I was inclined to react, I was impressed. Not only that, I even convinced a couple of my friends to take the test, and they were equally as surprised and amazed by how accurate the test was for them. I’ve also tried to identify the types for other people (who didn’t actually take the test) based on my understanding of the system, and the results were again very promising.
So, yeah, I am convinced. I still believe that an individual can not be boxed into a single category and will likely have characteristics from multiple types, and possibly also exhibit behavior inconsistent with their predicted type, but overall, their personality will be driven by their dominant type. For example: I don’t think anyone is a 100% introvert or 100% extrovert, but instead somewhere on a continuous spectrum, demonstrating both introvert and extrovert characteristics from time to time, based on the context. Yet their behavior is likely dominated by one of the two traits.
I do hope that you’ll take a few minutes out of your time to complete this test. And do that with an open mind and honesty, without worrying about a “right” or “wrong” answer. I think you’ll be amazed by what you discover.
And, if you indeed are, I humbly request you to spread the word, so that this can reach and help more and more people. And please do comment here about your experience.
Disclosure: 16personalities.com is not the only available test. There are other techniques and tests out there, but this is the one I took, and I liked it. So, that’s why I’m recommending the same. Others may be even better or may be worse. I’m not in any way associated with the website, and am only providing a recommendation based on personal experience. If you do try any other test, and find it useful, please do provide some information here, and I’ll include that in the post.
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Photo Credit: Brooke Cagle on Unsplash
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