Are you doubting your own personality type? I decided to write this article to show you how you can go about determining your personality type.
10 Tests To Determine Your Personality Type
Type is a spectrum. Your behaviour is adaptable. You switch between different subtypes and moods in different situations. So how do you determine your personality type? By practising awareness of your own intention.
- The Coin Flip
Why not just flip a coin on it? Expert decision makers have shown that the Coin Flip method is one of the best ways to make decisions in life. If you feel unsure, just toss a coin. Heads, you’re that type. Tails, you’re not that type. Flip the coin.
You flipped the coin. Do you want to flip it again? That’s a sign you’re not happy with the answer. Your gut tells you it’s wrong. You flipped the coin. It confirms what you already knew to be true. You don’t want to flip it again. You got the answer you believe to be correct. This can be useful to highlight your own gut feeling, and can be helpful for people who struggle to trust or know their own gut.
2. The Triangle Method
Type is a spectrum. Most likely, you’re in between a few different personality types. Find three types that are connected to each others by a maximum of one letter difference. Your true personality is somewhere in between those three. Those three highlight your core self.
3. Different systems, different outcomes
Different resources on the internet on personality psychology hold different assumptions about personality type.
Depending on what system you are reading about, and what source you use, you will probably identify with different personality types.
The fact that you identify with different personality types is a sign that you are using too many contradictory resources.
Take a second to critically evaluate your sources. Do you trust the source and does the dichotomy make sense?
And allow yourself to have and identify with different personality types in different systems. It’s perfectly fine to be one type in one system and another type in another system. What matters is not the definitions themselves but how you apply them in your personal life.
4. Stop listening to other people
Are you basing your opinions on yourself too much on what other people think about you?
When other people perceive you, they see your actions and your behaviours, not your intentions. Because of that, it’s common for other people to misunderstand you. Still, people tend to be very sensitive to the opinions of other people. Someone on the internet thinks you’re a specific personality type, based on a quick shallow glance on a version of you that you showed them. It’s usually better to not base your opinions too much on other people. You have a different face you show to different people. You know ultimately yourself best. It’s more important why you do certain things, than what you might adapt to do in different situations.
5. Skill is not personality
Many think “I can’t be this type, I’m not smart enough, kind enough, warm enough, friendly enough, outgoing enough”
You can learn to be any kind of person and your skills are a result of long term consistent effort and hard work. Your perceptions of your own skills are often highly inaccurate and clouded either by self-doubt, neuroticism, or overconfidence. Depending on what you studied, where you work, and what you put your skill points in, you can learn to be any type of person in practice.
Determine your personality based on your values, not where you put your skill points.
6. Personality is not mindset
The Enneagram shows that the different personality types can all have different mindsets. Your mindsets are your ingrained beliefs and patterns in how you think. Try to detach from your assumptions about people and yourself. You may be holding on to a script or a limiting belief system or ideology that makes you smaller than your true self. To determine if your mindset is holding your back, do this:
- Ask yourself if you ever find yourself wanting to do certain things, but deciding not to do it because you think you’re not allowed to, that it’s wrong, or that your parents wouldn’t be happy with you for doing it
- Notice when your worldview or ideology goes against your desires and deeper intentions. This can be when you hold contradictory expectations on yourself – for example, you have to be perfect, while other people are allowed to make mistakes.
- Notice when you find yourself denying yourself thoughts or opinions because they’re wrong. No thoughts or feelings are wrong. You’re allowed to think or feel anything you like. All thoughts and feelings are information. You ultimately decide what you want to do with them.
7. The Pendulum Effect
Some people think they’re not allowed to be contradictory in their behaviour. I can’t be an INFJ, because I sometimes like to go out and party. I can’t be an ENFP, because I sometimes do have attention to detail. I can’t be an ENTJ, because I do have feelings. The truth is, you’re allowed to, and welcome to be a contradictory person. That’s what we all are, silly.
ENTJs can put on a hard front to the world – yet have a sensitive inner child. ISFPs can seem sensitive and shy, but can be really strong and confident when necessary. INFJs can seem nice and kind, but can become cold. That doesn’t mean you’re mistyped. Just recognise the pendulum effect – the minds tendency to swing from one opposite to the other, and notice what you do when you are at your best, vs what you tend to do when you are put under stress.
8. Formulating a type hypothesis
I recommend everyone to formulate a type hypothesis.
If you’re an ENFP, then go out, and try to live like an ENFP, and see how that makes you feel.
If you think you’re extroverted, try to live and be more outgoing, and notice how you respond to that.
Your personality type is who you are at your best, not what you have learnt to do. If you try to modify your actions to be more in line with your perceived flow type, you should be and feel happier as a result.
9. Gain proof for your hypothesis
Make decisions more in line with your own personality type. Ask yourself – what would an ENFP do in this situation? How would my ideal version of myself deal with this problem? And then try to follow that.
You don’t determine your personality type purely mentally, but also practically. You want to go out into the real world – in your workplace and in your relationships, and try to find ways to be as true to yourself as possible.
That said, try not to change too drastically. Try to make small, easy changes, within your comfort zone. If you push things too quickly, that might backfire on you.
10. Revise your hypothesis
If it didn’t work out – if you didn’t feel happy, ask yourself why. Perhaps there’s something you need to revise in your hypothesis?
