How Well Do You Know Yourself?

“We will discover the nature of our particular genius when we stop trying to conform to our own or to other peoples’ models, learn to be ourselves, and allow our natural channel to open.” – Shakti Gawain

Most marketing gurus will tell you how important it is to know your market, and I completely agree. You need to have a thorough understanding of the wants, needs, desires and problems of those you serve. Without that information, how can you hope to make a difference in their life?

Further, no matter what type of product, service or information you offer, the bottom line is you are compensated in direct proportion to the amount of value you provide to your market, so you’d better know what your market finds valuable.

But here’s something the marketing gurus often overlook. It’s also important to know yourself. You may wonder why I say that, and to explain it, I’ll use myself as an example.

Lately, I’ve been struggling to express myself. I’ll sit down to write an article or blog post, and while the words might flow freely (or not), I often get to a point in the article and think, “wow, this is nothing but meaningless blather. People won’t care about this. I can’t publish it.”

After reading that section I realized I’ve been engaging in this internal civil war between who I really am and who I think I should be.

Even as I write this to you right now, I’m thinking the same thing, and I have to push myself to move forward and get it published. But it’s a lot easier now, because I learned some new information about myself this morning.

While doing some online reading, I ended up at a site called Human Metrics. On the site, they offer a free assessment called the Jung Typology Test. It’s based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), one of the best-known and most trusted personality assessment tools available.

So I did the assessment and learned I’m what’s known as an INTP personality type, also know as an “Architect.” There was a lengthy description of this personality type, but here’s part of the description that really hit home for me:

“INTPs constantly seek the Truth, and have ultimate respect for the Truth … Once they have reached a conclusion, or discovered a Truth, they are very particular about the way that Truth is expressed and understood.

“They want to know that the principles of their understanding have been understood correctly, and demand absolute precision and correctness from others when describing these principles.

“They also apply these standards to themselves when communicating their knowledge. If they take the time to develop their communication so that it meets their own approval, they can be extremely good educational writers.”

After reading that section I realized I’ve been engaging in this internal civil war between who I really am and who I think I should be. According to the assessment, I’m the type of person who needs to take in a lot of information before I can reach a conclusion or what I see as the truth. And for better or worse, that feels like an accurate description of who I am.

Further, if I embrace this characteristic instead of seeing it as a flaw to be fixed, it becomes a strength that not only serves me, but also my readers and clients.

I also need to feel as though I’m communicating my ideas thoroughly and precisely, and that explains why I find it so difficult and time consuming to express myself lately. I demand accuracy and honesty of myself.

Knowing that about myself liberates me from the painful idea that there’s something wrong with me. It helps me see that my need to be precise in my communication is not a flaw, but is rather a natural, normal part of who I am.

Further, if I embrace this characteristic instead of seeing it as a flaw to be fixed, it becomes a strength that not only serves me, but also my readers and clients. After all, people need someone who can synthesize many different ideas and communicate them in a way that’s accurate and easy to understand.

It also helps me to be more compassionate and patient with myself. It gives me a mental guide-post I can grab onto whenever I feel myself starting to engage in that internal civil war with myself.

It helps me understand that I’m just not the type of person who – for example – is going to be able to sit down and crank out a 1000 word article in 30 minutes. No matter how much I wish I was that type of person, the reality is that I need to give myself time to allow my ideas to brew and come together in a way that feels honest, accurate and valuable to folks.

That doesn’t mean I won’t push the edges of my comfort zone though. It doesn’t mean I’ll always be a slow, methodical writer. It just means that if I want to learn how to more easily and quickly express my ideas, then I need to give myself time to develop those skill-sets and mental abilities. I need to give myself time for those wings to fully develop before I go jumping off a cliff.

So, now it’s your turn. Here’s an assignment I believe will help you:

1. Visit the Human Metrics site, and complete the assessment. It should take you less than 5 minutes.

2. Once you discover your personality type, go to Google and do a search on that type. For example, I entered “INTP” into the search field and came up with tons of information about my type. You want to find out as much as you can about your personality type. I found this particular site very informative ( scroll to the bottom for your specific type under “Personal Growth and the Sixteen Types”).

3. After you learn as much as you can about your personality type, answer the following questions:

a. How does knowing this information about myself empower me?

b. Based on this information, what aspect(s) of myself am I now willing to embrace as a strength rather than a flaw?

c. How can I best leverage the fundamental characteristics of my personality type to deliver value to my market?

d. What practices might I implement to occasionally push myself beyond my comfort zone? For example, I’m practicing being able to go ahead and publish something even though I may feel it’s imperfect or incomplete.

I hope you’ll engage in the assignment, and I hope you find it as valuable and liberating as I did. If you do complete the assignment, I’d love to hear what you come up with, so feel free to send me any thoughts or insights that come up for you.