Personality Tests and Life Coaching

Posted on March 17, 2020 by Miranda Marschalk, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.

Some of you may have taken a personality test for your employer or just for fun, while some of you may have never taken one at all. Are they really important in finding out more about yourself?

Well, there isn’t a simple answer to that question. For one, a lot of the information you gain from a personality test just confirms what you already know about yourself. How helpful is that? However, there are secret nuggets of information in many tests that can help you when choosing a career, finding a mate and making changes to otherwise not so positive parts of yourself.

So do they have value? I think so. Anytime something is put before us in print it’s hard not to let it make us think. We think about whether it is true, false, preposterous, or enlightening. Personality tests challenge our beliefs about ourselves, and challenge is good. It helps us grow, spiritually, emotionally, intellectually and introspectively.

One Personality Test that I’m fond of is Myers-Briggs. It doesn’t just give an overview of what your personality traits are, it also discusses how to use them to your advantage and how to make the most of what you might consider to be your less desirable traits. It goes even further to tell you how to achieve the most with what you have, offering in-depth analysis, albeit for an extra fee. But I think it is so worth it. Understanding the behaviour of our coworkers, bringing groups together to utilize everyone’s strengths and lifting up our areas of opportunity. These things help us all to understand other’s responses to specific situations in the workplace, and beyond, which hopefully, when working well, breeds respect in all areas of life.

So how do I use this in my practice? Well for one it helps my clients open up about things about themselves that they may be proud of and not so proud of. It helps me to help them overcome areas or traits that may be seen as roadblocks, and it also allows both the client and I to focus on what needs to be addressed.

In this way, personality tests are a great addition to Life Coaching, either taken on your own or as part of the Life Coaching process. They can help you find a jumping-off point that can ‘get the ball rolling’ so to speak, but they can also hold you back if you don’t like what you see. The key here is to dig deep, acknowledge your roadblocks and assess what dreams they may be holding back. Then you will be free to find the strength you need to Dream Big and Make those Dreams a Reality.