The Best Personality Test Ever — The MBTI

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“We all come in different shapes and SIZES. We have our STRENGTHS and weaknesses.

What’s right for one person may not be right for someone else…
There are things that are important to one person that others don’t care about at all.

And sometimes other’s behaviors don’t make any sense to me.

Because we want to understand each other, and communicate well (since we live in the same world), we can’t expect others to want the same things that we want.
We are not the same person, so we will not always see things the same way.

We all have our own thoughts and ideas that may or may not fit into other people’s vision of who we should be.

By learning more about our own Personality, and about other Personality Types, we can improve our interpersonal relationships, adjust our expectations concerning others, and get a better self-understanding that will help us define and achieve our goals.”     (PleaseUnderstandMe.DavidKeirsey.AmazonBooks)

 

The Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

The Theory of Psychological Types was described by Carl Jung in the 1920’s. He theorized that much of the seemingly random variations in peoples behaviors are actually rather systematic and reliable. These basic differences can be viewed as the ways an individual prefers to:

  •  Perceive reality (all the ways of becoming aware of things, people, events, or ideas), and then
  • Evaluate those perceptions (all the ways of coming to conclusions about what has been perceived). Jung also talks of
  • Direction of Consciousness, or the basic direction in which a person’s conscious interests and energies may flow – either inward to subjective psychological experience, or outward to the environment of objects, other people and collective norms.

Isabel Briggs Myers studied Jung’s ideas and added her own insights. After 30 years of research and over 5,000 participants, she created a survey that would eventually become the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) (MBTI by Isabel Myers). It is the most widely used measure of Psychological Types.

Personality typing is a tool that is particularly helpful in personal growth: Understanding ourselves in a semi-objective way leads to heightened self-esteem.

It’s also a way to understand others: If people differ in what they perceive and in how they reach conclusions, then it is only reasonable for them to differ in their interests, reactions, values, motivations, and skills.

Learning about our Personality Type helps us to understand why certain areas in life come easily to us and others are more of a struggle. Learning about other people’s Personality Types help us to understand the most effective way to communicate with them.

This self-report questionnaire assesses “type preferences” on Extraversion-Introversion (E-I), Sensation-Intuition (S-N), Thinking-Feeling (T-F), and Judgment-Perception (J-P).

According to the MBTI, we all have a primary mode of operating within four categories:

  • The flow of energy– (I or E?) defines how you receive the essential part of your experience. Do you receive it from within yourself (Introverted) or from external sources (Extraverted)?
  • How you take in information (S or N?) shows your preference for focusing on 1) the basic information taken in through the five senses (Sensing), or by 2) interpreting and adding meaning (iNtuition).
  • How you prefer to make judgment calls (T or F?) objectively, using logic and consistency (Thinking), or subjectively, considering other people and special circumstances (Feeling).
  • The basic day-to-day decision-style that you prefer (J or P?) how you interact with the outer world — with a preference towards getting things decided (Judging), or for staying open to new information and options (Perception).

  • I’ve searched high and low and found these great online tools. The first link is to a good adaptation of the original test (Copyright infringements prohibit the availability of the real one):

     

    16Personalities- Get to Know Yourself – the BEST questionnaire on the web.

     

    After completing the test above, go HERE (The BEST MBTI Profiles ) to read detailed descriptions of your unique profile.

     

     

     

     

    Letting Go of Negative Attachments

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    “How do you let go of attachments?  Don’t even try.  Effort creates attachment.  Rather,  attachment to things drops away by itself when you no longer seek to find yourself in them.”  ~ Eckhart Tolle.

    1.  The C- concept

    When you recognize a quality in the other that was abandoned in yourself, it creates a longing – like a phantom limb. You become mesmerised. When you are attracted to a person, it’s often your “idea” of that person that creates the draw.

    I call it you, but in truth, it is my own longing for my lost-self. 

    In order to survive our first relationships, we learn to dis-own parts of ourselves they found undesirable. We even forgot it was ever a part of our true nature.

    My first clear experience of this was when I met a beautiful woman who was crazy-funny! ..”I wish I could be that free”… When I hung out with her I felt whole – My “C” became an “O”.

    In retrospect, she represented an aspect of Self that I had learned to shut down — being spontaneous.  I learned to reclaim the part of myself that could be spontaneous and fun, even if it drew attention to me!

    Try this is if your attachment is about a quality in the other: Write about the quality you are attracted to. Ask yourself, is it true that I lack the same aspect?

    2.  Compassion Project (to FIX you)

    When I resonate with you because I feel your pain, I experience a flooding of MDMA-like chemicals that expand my capacity for loving compassion (read more about Mirror neurons). In truth, I love the way I feel….   It feels like love..

    Try this if your attachment is about Compassion –

    Write everything you love about (the other). Write the advice you would give them, what you want for them.

    Now, take your sentences and cross out the other’s name. Replace it with “I, me”.

    For example, “I wish you could see how wonderful you are” becomes “I wish I could see how wonderful I am“.

    “If only you could see how much I love you” becomes “If only I could see how much I  deserve to love me“. (See Byron Katie’s The Work/”turnarounds“)

    We often think we have to force ourselves to make a decision regarding attachments. But forcing ourselves to act in a way that isn’t in line with what we truly feel never works. We will be done when we get the message… then we are done.

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