Elements of Personal Development

“It’s good to get things out of your system, emotionally and physically.”
~ source: the plastic label on the bottle of spring water I bought this morning..

One of the key aspects of personal development, of any kind, is to understand the raw materials you are working with. From there you start to gain an understanding of what needs adjusting, and the direction you should take. This ought to be obvious, however people (and I include myself here) often set off without a map; when we do that, we wind up wandering around aimlessly in circles!

Know Your Stuff

WARNING: In terms of discovering your strengths and weaknesses, there is a huge amount of information available. In fact, there is so much information that it is easy to wind up in a semi-permanent “research” mode. Interesting as it is, reading about personal development and profiling your own psychological makeup can easily become an all-consuming diversion from the real journey. I’ve got the t-shirt on that one!

A rough working guide to your starting point can be obtained through 2 steps:

Take the personality test at Human Metrics
Pick out the “elements” that resonate with you at MindFire

You MUST be brutally honest wth yourself while answering the questions, and fully expect to find things you disagree with, or find uncomfortable!

As an example, when I worked through the personality test I got INFP as the result. Apparently INFPs “do not like to deal with hard facts and logic” – this is quite amusing when you realise that I have spent over 25 years as a software developer!

On the face of it then, the test result and the reality of my life/career are completely at odds!

Making Sense of It

It is important that you don’t treat these classification systems as the absolute, definitive truth. Individual personalities will “conform” to the broad types in varying degrees, and may even contain aspects from more than 1 type. Figuring out your approximate type is intended only to point you in the right direction. If you are anything like me, as you read the descriptions you will start to recognise aspects of yourself and will even begin to admit (to yourself) certain traits.

To go back to my own example, as I read through the INFP description it started to make sense of why I find writing code so damn boring! It is also worth mentioning that on other occasions I have actually been rated as an INTP, which is either a sign of internal changes, or my own psyche existing on the borders of both types. What struck me about this type (INFP) was how accurate it was in terms of “big picture”, not getting hung up on “mundane details” and not dealing effectively with the practical side of day-to-day life (bills, organisation, todo lists etc.)

Not surprisingly, with the second article, I found myself drawn to “Fire” and can see most of my weak spots in “Earth” (which is quite amusing as my star sign is the very earthy Taurus!)

So from this starting point, enough information can be gathered to form a better assessment of yourself.

Moving Forward

Just knowing what makes you tick may well be all you need, and if you feel that is the case then fair enough! You may also feel, as I certainly do, that real life-changing improvements can be made by strengthening the weak spots , bringing them into balance with the stronger aspects of your self.

Using my own example, there is a definite need to focus on the practical aspects (e.g. handling bills/finances better) and paying more attention to the mechanics of converting ideas and dreams into realities. Both of these correspond with the “shadow” aspects I need to embrace.

In your case the strengths and weaknesses are likely to be different; do you perhaps have a good grasp of the practical side of life, and feel you are lacking in other areas? Are you great at expressing and feeling emotion, and then struggle with other parts of your life because emotions take over?

Baby Steps

By taking the two steps described, you will give your personal journey a real boost. Once you have started, you really just keep on travelling – one baby step at a time!

Enjoy the journey.
Gaz

Image courtesy of: aloshbennett