I have always been obsessed with all things personality. The personality quizzes, in my mind, were always the best part of American Girl Magazine, and even now, I do more than my fair share of buzzfeed quizzes. But over the past year, I've been diving deeper into the 'serious' side of personality.
I've taking personality tests and assessments, especially when it means I can leave with tools that actually help me be more productive, caring, and understood. The cool thing is, is that with every test I take, I'm always super consistent....I'm definitely not one of the people that falls between two different types.
Last summer at TC, I took a workshop called 'Leadership Colors' where we filled out a really great, thought-provoking questionnaire and then were given colors to represent our type. I was Green, which was definitely spot on. The focus of this particular workshop was learning about our personality color through a viewpoint of how it contributes to a group. With that in mind, some of the Green strengths were:
- Seeking to improve the current system/not accept the status quo.
- Competent and analytical.
- Future oriented, visionary.
And some of the weaknesses were:
- Getting stressed over lack of control/lack of independence (ummm, hands high).
- Getting stressed over small talk and social functions.
- Very sensitive to negative feedback about abilities/performance, and worry about being judged without being fully understood.
- Often get caught up in little details, which keeps them from getting from Point A to Point B.
This year at TC, I took the follow-up workshop which was called 'The Power of Understanding People.' We took a different questionnaires this time, and were assigned 'tools' that went along with our type. I was a 'wrench', which was the 'expert'. This workshop also discussed the different types working together in groups, with a focus on the needs of each type. Some needs for wrenches/experts:
- The intrinsic need was security (ummm, heck yes!).
- Values consistency, intelligence, knowledge, accuracy, and experience.
- Needs relationships built on dependability.
Some traits of wrenches/experts:
- Detailed and thorough.
- Are conservative and serious.
- Tend to avoid risks (boooo).
- Respectful of procedures, politics, and take a technical approach.
Another fun thing was that we also went through our secondaries, and with those we were given fictional characters that matched our types. I got Gillian Anderson from the X-Files! Too funny!
Then this winter, I took the 16 Personalities quiz. This is based off of the theories of Myers-Briggs and Carl Jung, and uses the same letter system as Myers-Briggs. In that quiz, I got INFJ, which accounts for less than 2% of the population. Learning I was an INFJ was so helpful to me. It really gave me the opportunity to understand things about myself that I knew, but didn't connect the dots with or know how to use for the best. INFJ stands for Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Judging. Some takeaway:
- I've always know I was an introvert, but the past year has been hugely successful in learning about the workings of my introverted-ness. Like now, I've learned the importance of being quiet, and giving myself time to think. But I've also learned that I need to actively combat my hermit tendencies, because I really do love hanging out with people!
- Being called intuitive has really allowed me to trust my gut more. Not to sound weird, but I definitely have always felt things that I couldn't really understand or put into words. Now that I'm calling that 'intuitiveness', I'm a lot better at being open about trusting my gut and not just brushing it off as 'it's all in my head'.
- Feeling means I'm very much a 'heart' person. I can have very high highs, and very low lows, and am easily affected by the energy around me. There's a part of me that is very sensitive to feedback, which means I'll run off praise for days (and remember negative comments for months).
- Judging means that I tend to stick to my life-truths and morals, and once I make a decision, I tend to be fiercely loyal to it.
I don't have much of a conclusion to this post, other than the fact that I'm still on a journey of learning about myself and how I work, and personality tests are my favorite way to do it. Taking the time to learn about it always leaves me inspired, and it's also allowed me to feel less 'weird'. But there is a funny story I want to tell you!
In the 16 Personalities results, it talks about how INFJ's usually have a bit of a split personality. There's the 'inner us', which we consider to be our 'true selves', that is pretty much the baller, kick-butt version of ourselves. That version is witty, chip-on-her-shoulder, and takes no crap. She's strong and fierce. In our heads, all INFJ's are the Baller Us.
But to the people around us...that's not at all how we represent. We tend to be quiet, generally shut our mouths about certain topics, and be generally thought of as 'sweet'.
Last night I was Skyping with Dia, and we were trying to assign characters for ourselves in Firefly. Dia said I was Kaylee, and I was like, "NO! I want to be Zooey!!". Dia said, "But I'm Zooey!" And I said, "There's no way you could be Zooey if I don't act like Zooey, we're too similar."
Such an INFJ thing to do....we both want to be the kick-butt, inner-selves Zooey, but to the world, we will probably always be the Kaylee's. And we sorta hate that.
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Also, Day 10 calls for our first vlog of the challenge!! In this Vlog Argument, we discuss which Firefly character is the best! Enjoy our hilarious and awkward foray into blogging.
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What's your personality type? Which Firefly character is your favorite, and who do you think wins...Wash or Jayne? Check back later for Day 11, 'Favorite Fandom Quotes'.
Happy Friday! xoxo
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