Introduction
Personal characteristic of an individual can be assessed using several instruments. The instruments that can be used to gauge one’s personalities include the Myers-briggs type indicator (MBTI), Thomas- kilman conflict mode instrument (TKI), firo-b assessment (fundamental interpretation relations orientation-behavior) and strengths finder 2.0. These tools have the capability of effectively identifying ones personality characteristics. The ability to interpret the results accurately into a meaningful, productive and useful manner makes these tools essential. A clear understanding of the results is important for making good career choices, improving and adjusting one’s skills as a manager or seeking for a better realization of one’s talents, natural strengths and passions.
I have used the myers-briggs type indicator (MBTI) to analyze my personality preferences. The myers-briggs type indicator identifies personality by identifying the source of an individual energy, the process of acquiring information, the decision making process and the reaction to the outside environment. I have also used the strengths finder 2.0 to uncover my first five natural strengths.
I am nineteen years old. I have a Russian origin. Understanding my traits would be very beneficial as I would integrate them fully in my life. The knowledge of my personal personality traits will help in shaping my communication styles and management skills. In addition, it will lead to a better understanding of the self and how I interact with other people.
The strengths finder brought out my top trait as being strategic, competitive, woo, idealistic and futuristic. Majority of these traits do fit well with how behave in different settings, although, I really do not agree with the quality of ideation. I am opposed to intuition hence am not idealistic person. I prefer dealing with facts rather than mere ideas and suggestions. I really set plans for all my endeavors and work in a systematic manner. That’s why I can say I am strategic and futuristic. I am competitive because I set very high goals sometimes beyond expectations of everyone so that I can handle challenging experiences. I like influencing people to accept my decisions so that I can attain my goals. The traits are interrelated. One leads to the other.
Competitive
I have had many achievements in since my childhood due to my competitive spirit. The desire to compete successfully is always burning in my heart. I started playing tennis as early as five years. I have achieved a lot in this field. My coach says am the best player to represent the country at international level. I have been a nice tennis player since childhood, but, I never knew I could achieve high standards. This was until when I was in my second grade, when my friend Joe told me ‘you can be a great tennis player’. I started practicing hard and in three years my coach recognized my potential. One day he said “you will represent the school in the coming inter-school tournament”. That year I concentrated on improving my weaknesses and in the competitions I emerged the best player after beating many years defending champions. My friend Joe said “you really made our school proud”.
I am a multi linguist. I can speak up to four different languages. I have engaged in writing competitions and verbal competition. My competitive spirit inspires me to work hard. I set goals and concentrate all my energies towards achieving them. This is because I not only compete with others but also with my own standards. This is especially so if my competitors prove to be very challenging. I have worked hard to learn new languages despite that my parents only know two languages: Russian and Croatian. I am also fluent in English and Slovak. My friends make fun of me by asking “why do you keep on practicing new languages which are of little help to you?” my competitive spirit has made me to engage in several national essay writing competition.
Woo
I am an open-minded, friendly person and talk a lot to people I know. I influence other people to do things the way I perceive. I influence my team mates on making decisions on whether to have training sessions in the morning or in the evening. I usually adjust this according to other duties ahead of me. I do this so well that no one realizes that an egocentric.
I interact with people of different origins especially if they speak a language I understand. I first identify with them so as to easily influence their way of doing things. I learn their character by talking a lot to them and letting them to feel free with me. To woe others I make all our conversation informal so that I can influence them easily. My auntie Clara tells me that I am a genius in influencing others.
Strategic
I have the ability to identify and analyze a problem and lie down appropriate strategy to solve it. To do this effectively I study the context of the problem and think critically about the whole issue. As a professional tennis player I analyze my opponent’s strengths and weakness and maximize my training on them. This enables me lay down appropriate strategy to beat challenging opponents.
When I was studying new languages I developed several strategies of improving both written and spoken abilities. My strategy was simple but effective. I could try several spelling and pronunciation test to identify my areas of weakness. I could then embark on the trying to spell similar challenging words.
Strength finder and career
The strengths finder themes are very useful in helping one in his/her job search. It can help me to get a job easily by having the signature themes in my resume. Employers looking for employees with search qualities can find it easy when these themes are provided. It is easy to find jobs that match with individual strengths. One will easily get a job by matching the job requirements with one’s strengths.
Myers-briggs type indicator (MBTI)
on gathered facts. In fact there was time I attended an international tennis tournament to get facts on international laws applied in tennis (extraverted). This
I can judge the outcome of a situation with some The myers-briggs type indicator (MBTI) test indicated my results to be ESFJ. The letters have the meanings E-extraverted, S-sensing, F-feeling and J-judging. The percentage preference showed that the quality of extraverted personality had a highest preference of 56%. This is followed by judging with 33%, feeling with 25% and sensing with 12%. The strong one is know as the dominant, followed by the auxiliary, the third is tertiary and fourth is refereed as the fourth. The dominant is the one in which individuals’ shows most to the external world. In general, ESFJs are talkative, decisive, dependable and conscientious. They are socialist; they are practical, committed and organized in making their ends meet. I do agree with this general this view. This indicator reveals a loyal person who tends to put emphasis on family and tradition. Persons’ reflect these qualities when often participate in celebrations and family events. EFJSs have genuine interest and focus in lives of other people. They encourage others with aim of making them feel valued. They do so to seek positive support of others in their deeds.
The EFSJs seek to do things that attract the attention of other people and should be keen not to forget their things. They have organizational skills which they use to create order in situations and for people. They gather peoples’ specific information. Their focus is on projects with visible benefits and work hard to achieve the desired goals. They prefer realistic information to theoretical thinking. It is possible for them to predict the essentials for doing a task or responding to problems. They can be adamant to change, if they do not see immediate benefits. Such people have a feeling of ensuring things are under their control. They examine carefully analyze situations to evaluate future benefits. In some greater, I do agree with most of these qualities, although I do not agree with low sensing personality.
The quality of moderate extraverted personality fits well with my behavior. I do seek for practical realities rather than intuition tendencies. I rely more precision. At most times I make the right prediction. When I prepare adequately I predict a high likely hood of wining a tennis match. I am able to judge the outcomes of several life experiences (judge). My mum sometimes says that “you are always right”.
I have a moderate feeling personality as identified by the myers-briggs type indicator. I have shown this the way I pronounce words when reciting poems or telling stories. I use tonal variations to create emotions to the audience (feeler).
Though the MBTI shows that I have a slightly sensing personality I totally disagree. This is because I influence people and I talk a lot without boring them. I understand when their emotions change and when there is need to change topic (sensor).
MBTI influence on career and life
Career
Understanding of my personalities can help me in choosing a good career. A suitable career, that match my qualities would have a direct impact on the life of people, promote development of relationship with others, have supportive working environment, job evaluation based on clear and set criterion and with a greater degree of freedom. In this case, I would enjoy organizing my career exploration to have optimized efficiency, gather relevant information to make a good career choice, the need to consider long term benefits and make career decisions earlier. There are many career options for EFSJs to consider. These include education, social worker, coaching, and counselor among many others. The best option for me would be to take a career in tennis playing and in future take on tennis coaching. The qualities play a direct role in my career. As a judge I can easily judge how vigorously to train and practice for a future experience. My strengths enable me to be very competitive in my career. They also make me to work hard towards achieving highest standards. This would make me very happy. I can be very influential where I can influence others for my benefit.
Learning
I enjoy learning practical things that have a direct impact on other peoples’ life. A learning process characterized by group discussions and active participation would be effective for my learning. I prefer learning realistic thing to theoretical information, which has no relevance. Use of writing format that has proved to be successful in the past would be appropriate to use. I prefer to write facts in a structured way. These qualities have a direct influence in my academic life.
Negative influence in life
Some of the strengths such as being extraverted can have negative impacts in my life. They hinder my reasoning capability and the ability to respond to new challenges that require active thinking and logical reasoning. This would demand for new ideas to solve a potential proble The myers-briggs type indicator (MBTI) test indicated my results to be ESFJ. The letters have the meanings E-extraverted, S-sensing, F-feeling and J-judging. The percentage preference showed that the quality of extraverted personality had a highest preference of 56%. This is followed by judging with 33%, feeling with 25% and sensing with 12%. The strong one is know as the dominant, followed by the auxiliary, the third is tertiary and fourth is refereed as the fourth. The dominant is the one in which individuals’ shows most to the external world. In general, ESFJs are talkative, decisive, dependable and conscientious. They are socialist; they are practical, committed and organized in making their ends meet. I do agree with this general this view. This indicator reveals a loyal person who tends to put emphasis on family and tradition. Persons’ reflect these qualities when often participate in celebrations and family events. EFJSs have genuine interest and focus in lives of other people. They encourage others with aim of making them feel valued. They do so to seek positive support of others in their deeds.
The EFSJs seek to do things that attract the attention of other people and should be keen not to forget their things. They have organizational skills which they use to create order in situations and for people. They gather peoples’ specific information. Their focus is on projects with visible benefits and work hard to achieve the desired goals. They prefer realistic information to theoretical thinking. It is possible for them to predict the essentials for doing a task or responding to problems. They can be adamant to change, if they do not see immediate benefits. Such people have a feeling of ensuring things are under their control. They examine carefully analyze situations to evaluate future benefits. In some greater, I do agree with most of these qualities, although I do not agree with low sensing personality.
The quality of moderate extraverted personality fits well with my behavior. I do seek for practical realities rather than intuition tendencies. I rely more m.
Improving strengths
I can improve on my strengths especially on the quality of being extraverted and sensing. I can only achieve this by first acknowledging that there are new ideas that are better than existing ways of doing things. Then I can evaluate them and embrace the better ideas. Secondly, I can minimize talking and embrace mutual conversations where I will let others share their ideas without interruptions.
To further improve my strengths; firstly will request my friends to inform me when I dominate all conversations. Secondly, I will request my mentor to advice me on how to improve on self thinking and lastly, I will always consult my parents incase I want to make life decisions.
Conclusion
I have focused on my personal traits as identified by strengths finder and the myers-briggs type indicator. Some of the strong traits identified are: strategic, wooing, futuristic, competitive and idealistic as identified by the strengths finder. Other trait identified by the MBTI includes extraverted, sensing, feeling and judging (EFSJ). Majority of this trait do correspond with my behaviorist tendencies. However, a few of these traits do not match with personal behavior this does not mean the indicators are invalid. The indicators have a real meaning in life and they influence on many aspects of career exploration and choice, learning and social life.
