You are oriented to life differently than some and the same as others.

No, it’s not an overly insightful statement, but in moments you do forget.

You need to make yourself right so that someone else can be wrong (or vice versa … yes, that happens).

You can’t figure someone out that you want to be close to or need to work with at least for now, and so you wish they were different and try to change them.

Or sometimes change yourself so that it would be easier to be around them.

When really, if you knew that each personality type has a language (yes, within our one English language, each personality type has a whole vocabulary that they are responsive too), you could honor you and honor the other through personality type translation (a specialty of mine). Connecting rather than disconnecting habitually over “personality differences or conflict.”

And this takes empathy. This is also a practice of empathy.

However, just for now, with the few hours of guidance that you’ve probably had and the personality assessment you have in a drawer somewhere, what you essentially have in your hands is a tool to affirm how you are to yourself and others.

Take it out and have a closer look and behold:

A lexicon for your ego. Vocabulary – words, delicious words that feel like home.

That is if you indeed answered the personality assessment to begin with in a way that felt authentic rather than in judgement of how you ought to be or were conditioned to believe is right – your state of mind determined the results at the time of test taking.

(Good to know eh? Especially if you want to make believe for real.)

But remember, a personality test is a personality test because it’s a “forced choice exercise” – which isn’t a wholly bad thing or anything, just a point of acknowledgement.

And self-awareness, in contrast is possibility. An acknowledgement of all choices in a single moment. And the ability to select the one that feels most useful for that moment.

Always having access to this ability is what I call, having access to every personality type. This happens when you are connected to your soul and the channel is clear from soul to ego.

And BTW – just so we’re on the same page (I digress for a moment), here’s what I don’t want you to walk away thinking about personality assessments: They’re not boxes to put people in. They’re not a resource for you to learn how to manipulate others.

This is how fear speaks. Thinks. Walks down the street.

There is no love in that way of engaging.

But I know (and I’ve seen) people use this tool in this way. I’ve seen workplaces use this tool in this way.

How clever, but not very smart when you think of the results on yourself for using a tool in this manner.

The way I see it, a personality assessment can offer you at least three benefits right now with kind, compassionate and intelligent use, because what you really want to feel is more at home in the world:

1:: When you have the words to describe your personality, you can put them on your resume to make it a far more interesting read. This also helps you to help identify postings and work opportunities that are a better fit and more worth your energy investment.

2:: When someone asks you what your communication style is like or what your preferences are around being managed in a role at work, draw on the language of your personality type to answer. This way, no one is bad or wrong for how they prefer to exist in the world.

Operating from your preferences after all is what will make you stay or enjoy your work more and longer. Plus you genuinely feel okay if someone was looking for a different personality type too. You want who wants you and that happens faster if you are more you.

3:: Personality assessments help articulate the generalities of how you are and understand how others are. You listen with more accuracy and offer what you say with more transparency because no one personality is better or worse than any other.

So while personality assessments offer useful information, they are not what I would consider to be enlightening. They give words to what is already there and in existence that you may have never reflected upon before.

I would say though that a personality assessment is self-affirming.

As in:

“Oh! I thought something was wrong with me for not wanting to be social all the time. According to my personality type, I prefer to work on my own. I feel normal now whereas before I thought I was weird.”

And self-affirming is not the same as self-warenessreness.

As in:

“I always doubt my decisions when I speak with my mother. I seem to have a pattern of not trusting myself that I want to change. I’m no longer willing to sabotage myself with this belief.”

Besides a personality type isn’t unique.

But you, yeah you … you are.

Your uniqueness, like a snowflake or fingerprint or tree, means that there is something deeper at work within your being. You are not just a personality.

Your soul, not your personality, is what calls you to places and dreams to live out. To work that makes you want to be alive. To meet people who make you feel like you’re playing childhood make believe all over again. Your soul craves playmates and something meaningful to do. And it knows your path innately (if you let your soul come out to play).

This is what happens naturally when you allow your soul to animate your personality.

When we see this, we call this person passionate.

So, take a personality test if you like, but invest in self-awareness. Those get you the best results.