The best personality test can’t help you. Knowing your type only helps you if 1) it’s accurate and 2) you put your knowledge into action.
Have you ever experienced habitual conflict with a loved one that seemed unavoidable and unsolvable?
Have you ever gotten stuck in negativity from comparing yourself with others?
Have you ever felt stuck in unhealthy choices without the energy or direction to change?
Of course you have, because we all have.
The best personality test will only make a difference in our lives if we use it to understand not our own selves only, but also other people.
Understanding your personality, through the best personality test or through trial and error – and your homeschool personality – will help you unravel tensions and unproductive behaviors faster than anything.
Not only that, if you also know your spouse’s, children’s, or mother’s personality, then those seemingly unavoidable conflicts can be quickly diffused – knowing the personality patterns shows the way to choose understanding and appreciation over conflict and turmoil.
The best personality test doesn’t waste your time.
Geeking out on MBTI typing can be an awesome way to waste a day or a week, but so much of it is based on career advice or the work place that it’s difficult to see how it applies to moms at home, raising children.
But what we have is a personality hotbed. The best personality test can’t sort that out for us. We are still left, after the test, with those distinct and different types in our homes.
We need to work in line with, and not against our own personalities and our husband’s and our children’s. Sometimes that means going against “common wisdom” or received practices – and sometimes it doesn’t.
We need to account for each child’s personality, and help each one develop his own strengths, rather than try to make them conform to our own.
We need to be effective and wise counselors, guiding our children and our friends (not to mention ourselves) toward greater understanding, maturity, and kindness.
Knowing personality typing gives us the vocabulary to talk about each other’s strengths and weaknesses with sympathy and grace. With new categories in our minds, we can better interpret the dynamic playing out in our homes and address it effectively.
Instead of escalating or ignoring conflict, we can see the path of resolution.
Disclaimer: I am an enthusiast on the topic, not an expert and have no credentials in the matter. I only read, think, and talk about it all the time. So sometimes I also have to write about it. Humor me.
Further applications of personality typing:
- Personality Matters - understanding those letters
Learn what personality typing is and the Myers-Briggs letters mean - Your homeschool personality
Find out what style of homeschool mom you are and shed the guilt! - Personality and Learning Styles
Did you know that personality and so-called learning styles are connected - Know Your Child’s Personality Type
When we know our children’s personality types, we can help them better.
My guest posts on personality types:
- The best homeschool planner for your personality type at Homeschool Solutions
- Energy management and personality type at Afterthoughts
- Planning by personality type on the Homeschool Solutions Podcast with Pam Barnhill
In my opinion, the best personality test is reading up on types and then picking yourself from a list of descriptions, not taking a long and subjective quiz.