Hi, my name is Megan and I’m addicted to dissecting personalities! Seriously though, it is fascinating and the more I study, the more I see how powerful understanding your personality can be. I wasn’t always into this. Truthfully I was completely shut off from the idea after I took my first Myers Briggs test a few years ago.

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Picture this: 6 friends are at the dinner table and one couple talks about how they recently took an eye opening personality test. The group starts to get excited about the topic and before you know it they are answering 93 questions concerning themselves. At the end of the test, each friend tallies up their answers and compares it to the test guide that points them to one of 16 personality types. Then comes the fun part: 1 of the friends reads aloud one by one the very in-depth analysis of each individual’s personality.

This little scenario was a pivotal point in the past 5 years for me. As my best friend read through the 4 other personality types around the table, I sat in my chair not understanding any of the descriptions. Why? Not because they were full of psychological jargon, but because they were extremely in-depth with high level vocabulary. AKA I felt really dumb because I had no idea what half the words meant! Listening to the profiles was like reading a chemistry book while also trying to comprehend it. #yeahright

And then she got to me. I geared up for my own assessment to go way over my head and she began with, “You like to have fun.” The paragraph that followed continued in this elementary style with statements like “You like to have a lot of friends, you like parties, you are creative, and you cannot commit to long term things.” While every other profile sounded like a master’s dissertation, mine sounded more like Hooked on Phonics!

My assessment wasn’t false. In fact it was a very accurate description of myself, but I was extremely embarrassed by the truth of my shallow sounding existence. As the conversation moved on I felt debilitated in the thought that while everyone else was equipped with the smarts and depth to make big things that matter happen in their lives, I would just have ‘fun.’ And in true form to my personality, I laughed about it and then swore I wouldn’t ever think about it again.

Well never say never. About 6 months ago as I was in the black hole of the Facebook vortex I stumbled upon an article about the MBTI, which then led me into a clicking tailspin into taking the test again and spending copious amounts of time reading every article I could find about my personality type, my strengths and weaknesses, how I relate to others in relationships, what careers best suited my personality type and a whole lot more than I bargained for when I tapped on that little blue square with the ‘f.’ The difference this time around was that I was two kids, owning two homes and renting a third, owning multiple businesses within the family and more into my marriage and Jeremy and I were struggling to connect well. The more I read, the more I heard key frustrations coming to light that were causing real animosity in my relationship with my husband.

Which led to reading every article I could find on Jeremy’s personality type and low and behold a light bulb went off. The things we were wrestling with were not from actions of intent, but rather classic traits and expressions of our very opposite personalities. The things I marked as life failures in education, in business and in collapsed commitments were mere indicators of my typical patterns. The embarrassment I felt years before wasn’t because I was less than, but rather I was painfully aware of how I was sitting in my weaknesses instead of tapping into the power of my strengths.

I’ve spent the past 6 months studying my personality and the personalities around me. I’ve spent the past 2 months going 10,000 layers deep to my core values and how I want to live this life with a personal coach/counselor (or whatever you want to call her!) and I can say without a doubt that I have seen more personal growth in learning from her than ever. I am viewing painful and celebratory moments in my life across the board that point directly to my innate personality weaknesses and strengths, and more importantly I have been able to learn how I can navigate through my weaknesses by harnessing my strengths in my daily life.

In this case, ignorance is not bliss. Bliss is intentional. I haven’t arrived at some perfect definition of intentional living, but am far better equipped and conscious of myself and the daily patterns I can work on shifting to get to my definition of days, weeks, years, and a life well lived.

I am an ESFP by the way. 😉

And my coach is Carli Patton. I would recommend her to everyone! But don’t expect all the rainbows. This is hard work, friend!

Have you studied your personality? What assessment have you taken and what was the result? I can’t wait to hear all about it!