Getting to know me or you ... a thought for a New Year's resolution

Well, I mean getting to know me, you, or the person sitting next to you right now … in a good way. Today, over lunch, Natacha and I got talking again about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. It’s a wonderful tool that can help you understand your own personality and references, and how those would influence your job, studies, interpersonal relationships and more.

I’ve always been a big believer in knowing the self. I’ve spent plenty of time in the school psychologist’s office (and that was in grammar school!) and ‘on the couch’ as an adult. It’s a long slog doing it that way. I wish somebody would have given me the MBTI early on and sat me down to explain it and what it meant for me.

The MBTI is merely a way of determining how people make decisions, using their unique judgement and perceptions, based on the work of Carl Jung. The goal of the MBTI is to bring that theory down to an accessible and  practical level, so that people could use it in their everyday lives through the use of four basic descriptor dichotomies.

Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I). Sensing (S) or Intuition (N). Thinking (T) or Feeling (F). Judging (J) or Perceiving (P).

I am an INTP. Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Perceiving. Extreme on the first two.

The four dichotomies are then grouped into 16 personality types- INTP being just one.

The Myers-Briggs has been in use for more than 50 years.

Over the years I’ve discovered that the Myers-Briggs is pretty durned accurate, since I’ve taken it a number of times and it’s not changed in a very long time. Although I didn’t take it too seriously at first, more recently I’ve begun to look at it in a new light, and really understand how it can help me be a better communicator, and generally more in tune with who I am and how that fits into daily life.

All types are equal in MBTI - with no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ type. From their site:

“The goal of knowing about personality type is to understand and appreciate differences between people. As all types are equal, there is no best type.

The MBTI instrument sorts for preferences and does not measure trait, ability, or character. The MBTI tool is different from many other psychological instruments and also different from other personality tests.

The best reason to choose the MBTI instrument to discover your personality type is that hundreds of studies over the past 40 years have proven the instrument to be both valid and reliable. In other words, it measures what it says it does (validity) and produces the same results when given more than once (reliability). When you want an accurate profile of your personality type, ask if the instrument you plan to use has been validated.

The theory of psychological type was introduced in the 1920s by Carl G. Jung. The MBTI tool was developed in the 1940s by Isabel Briggs Myers and the original research was done in the 1940s and ’50s. This research is ongoing, providing users with updated and new information about psychological type and its applications. Today, more than two million people worldwide take the Indicator each year.”

We came home and I found a website - a link from the Myers-Briggs Foundation site - where you can actually take a shortened version of the MBTI online for $60. So, Natacha sat down and did the questionnaire.

I already had a pretty good idea of how she might turn out, and it was spot on. I mean it really amazed Natacha. The neat thing about the MBTIComplete online tool, is that it’s affordable, and they give you some additional analysis (the Clif Notes version) of your results that seemed to be quite helpful for Natacha. So much so, that she wanted to know how soon she could take it again, so that she’d have an even clearer result. She ended up right in the middle of one of the dichotomies - and there are a number of reason why that often happens - which would clear up with subsequent testing.

Anyhow, it turns out that she is an ESFJ for right now. I think the E might change to an I later, and the S will become even more so.

But she was able to link the results with some concrete information relevant to her chosen profession and how she deals with people.

You can also take the MBTI from another organization developed by Myers-Briggs at the Center for Applications of Psychological Type. The fee is $150. From what I see, it’s probably a more definitive test. They will actually give you a call back and spend one hour explaining the results - one on one over the phone - and how the information can be best put to use for you and your circumstances.

This would be money well spent, especially if you seem to be searching for ways to better walk the path of life.

Since I always am, I just may do this one.

This is a nice little bit of self-improvement that might be just the thing for you in the new year.

maven

Comments

[The Step Daughter]

A couple of great books on MBTI that I refer back to over and over...
"Do What You Are" by Tieger and Barron-Tieger is a career development book that will help those trying to find the right career as well as those trying to improve performance in their current job. And "Please Understand Me" by Kiersey is great for understanding how you relate to others. By the way I am an INFJ.

[bluelyon]

ESFP - that's me, though my T and F leanings are almost straight down the middle.

[mavenandmeddler]

Interesting that an E would be so shy on her blog - and I still can't get you to lunch! Ha! The SFP makes a lot of sense though.