5 Personality profile assessments that will change your life

Are you feeling lost about who you are and what your gifts and strengths are?

I grew up reading the star sign reviews in all the latest magazines. I loved knowing more about myself but these were never enough to satiate my appetite. I wasn’t in it for what my future held, I just had this intense desire to know more about me!

You’ll get to know this about me if you stick around… I really do LOVE knowing about myself. In fact, the more I know, the more it leads to more I don’t know.

So it’s this never ending quest for knowledge that EXCITES me to my core… in the past it used to be based on figuring out how I could fix myself (bye-bye limiting belief that there was something wrong with me!)… 

But now I lean into it, it’s my calling, my mission to understand myself better, so that I can understand others better – and support them in doing the same! 

One of the ways I have grown to understand myself is through personal identity or design assessments. So I thought I would share my top five Personality Profile Assessments! 

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Where to start

I love all of these for varying reasons, that’s why I could never recommend just one. It really depends on what you are after. The way I’m listing them is not in priority order – more so in a timeline of how I discovered them.

 

1. Myer Briggs

An oldie but a goodie. As a 21-year old I remember feeling this sense of glass walls shattering when I discovered my personality type. (INFJ for all those who are interested).

Now, I know labels have a bit of a “bad” name. But it’s really all about how you apply the labels in this case. It’s not about saying I’m an Introverted, Intuitive, Feelings and Judgemental Personality and boxing yourself within those preferences. 

It’s more about noticing “where and when are you these things” and “where and when aren’t you these things”. And how you can develop the skills and respect for the opposite end of the spectrum. It’s about bringing in awareness and understanding for yourself, others and how you can interact, lead and communicate better. 

So what is it? Carl Jung believed that we are each born with a preference, providing us with natural gifts and strengths that develop over time. They are our go to’s, the ones that make us feel safe and more like ourselves. Each of these are on a sliding scale and over the course of our life we begin to develop the skills on the opposite side. 

The four pairs of preferences are

• Extroversion or Introversion: which is the direction and focus of your energy
• Sensing or Intuition: How you prefer to gather your information 
• Thinking or Feeling: How you prefer to make your decisions
• Judging or Perceiving: How you deal with the outer world

You may like to head over to 16 Personalities website to take a free test and find out more. I also really like the book “You’ve got personality” by Mary McGuiness. These are both easily digestible resources. 

Personally I think this is a great resource to use in the business world, to get a good understanding of your team mates and leaders. It’s helpful but not overly personal like a few others on the list. 

2. Strengths Finder

This one I picked up in my late-20s and allowed me to really understand some of my gifts. You know that question in interviews where they ask you your strengths? This book helped me answer that question with more confidence and describe exactly how I applied them in my job and personal life. 

StrengthsFinder 2.0 comes from 40 years of research on human strengths.

It goes into detail on the most common 34 strengths including:

• a description and how we apply them
• language often used by people with these strengths 
• ideas for action if this is your strenght
• how to relate to people with this strength. 

I loved this assessment tool because it provided language, confidence and again better understanding and appreciation of myself and colleagues. You can purchase the book and take the test online via the Gallup website here, alternatively you can find facilitators that run workshops as a team building exercises. 

3. DISC

Okay, this one I didn’t love straight away. I had read about it in my 20s but it just didn’t click until my husband started reading about it a year or so ago and sharing with me his learnings. Now I love it because I can use it to quickly identify where people sit in the realm of the DISC and briefly understand them and respect the way they operate in life. 

Again I don’t like to box people in and see them just through the lense of their profile – but it’s often helpful when you’re in sales, as it allows you to tailor your communication and pitch to a person. 

I also like it because once you get to know the main traits of each profile, it allows you to see people just as they are and not who you want or expect them to be. 

DISC is based on four profile or personality types. You are usually dominant in one to two areas and have one type that may irritate you or you tend to stay away from. These aren’t static and what we’ve noticed is that you tend to build your skills and confidence in the second dominant area through life events and challenges.  

The four types are:

• Dominance: confident, focussed on bottom-line results
• Influence: open, relationships, influencing, persuading 
• Steadiness: dependable, cooperation, sincerity
• Conscientiousness: quality, accuracy, expertise, and competency.

There are quite a few books that dive into these four types of personalities. The one my husband really enjoyed was “Surrounded by Idiots” by Thomas Erikson – this one actually isn’t DISC but the profiles are similar and it’s a great book. 

I’ve also read Sales Dogs by Blair Singer sometime ago and loved his analogies – they sounded pretty closely linked to these four types – Pit Bulls, Poodles, Golden Retrievers and Chihuahuas.

The official website and resources can also be found on the DISC website here.  

 

4. Astrology 

Oooh so this one can often be seen as a bit “woo-woo” and “airy-fairy” but I’ve seen a whole different light on it since my mum has studied it. It is incredibly in-depth and spookily accurate. I am always surprised at how this information can be provided just from the date, time and location of your birth. 

It does my head in a bit to read an astrology chart. I would much prefer to have it interpreted and broken down into personalised chunks. Lucky for me I have my mum just a call away, who is super tuned in and can give me the information I’m looking for pretty much on the spot. 

The main parts of your Astrology Chart include:

• Sun: where you shine and glow, create opportunities for feeling alive and purposeful, where you take action to gain approval. Also how you perceive your

father.

• Moon: your instincts,intuition, emotions, moods, give support. Also where we deal with our Mother’s role model – sort out which methods to accept or reject. 
• Rising sign: overall personality traits, the way in which we approach life, how we greet the world, the mask we wear, how we fit in.
• Nodes: our spiritual evolution, representing gifts we come into the world with and shows us where we are to grow and change.

You also have all the houses and planets, that can tell you more in depth knowledge about who you are, your purpose, your gifts, challenges, learnings and so much more. 

I really love this for a more in-depth personal understanding that is private and unique to me. And as a tool to look back on my life and go “yeah, that’s how it was for me”. It’s also been a wonderful resource to help me understand my children, the way in which they see me and their dad. 

 

5. Human Design

This one lights me up and gets me super excited the most! Now again, super in-depth but I have started to dive deep into this system and I just LOVE it! It has been the most liberating. It’s like you are given the key to your own universe. 

Human Design is where science meets spirituality in a unique and complex but vastly insightful framework that provides us with our soul’s energetic blueprint. It is your personal manual on how you can thrive in this material world.

Human Design helps you to discover who you are at a soul level and understand:

• who we came here to be in this lifetime and our unique gifts
• how our energy is naturally designed to interact with the world around us
• where we have been conditioned by beliefs, society or events
• the path back to our natural, authentic self and how to live in our own unique energetic correctness.

Like the others, you can be provided super broad information, but when you have someone personalise your reading the findings are fascinating and it can really steer the way for your inner work. 

This is great for understanding yourself and others (particularly loved ones), deepening your inner work, and finding freedom to be yourself and let others do the same. 

Why these five Personality Profile Assessments?

Honestly there are more than five Personality Profile Assessments that have influenced my life and are also just as noteworthy – Ayurveda, Blood Groups, Numerology, Face Reading, Emotional Anatomy, 72 Angels of Kabbalah, Attachment Theory, Principle Centres, Homeopathy… just to name those top of mind.

And I’m sure I’ll discover many more on the way. It’s really finding an avenue that resonates with you and provides what it is you are looking for.

Ready to discover more about yourself?

Work with Amy to understand your unique human design, values and voids in life. She will support you to find your own flow within the structures, boundaries and blueprints of your being; understand yourself on a deeper level; and realise and experience your own inner knowing and gifts to this world.

If you would love to learn more about Amy and you loved the five Personality Profile Assessments and you want to see what else she offers here, Or if you are after more mental health articles you can access them here which cover a range of topics.

Follow this link to get started today.

Amy

xx