On a lark recently, I took an adaptation of the Myers Briggs test.  I’d never taken the test before, and the resulting description was so shockingly accurate I had to stop reading periodically to catch my breath.  Since then, I’ve been thinking about the assessment a lot, and I wanted to figure out why it’s had such an impact.  It wasn’t that it told me anything radically new about myself.

I think the thing about Myers Briggs that was so revelatory was that it helped me see various components of my personality as parts of an integrated system.  For example, my tendency toward perfectionism is connected to my ability to envision the potential in any given situation.  The latter makes me good at innovation, the former makes me beat myself up (usually about unimportant things like leaving bread in the oven too long).  Understanding that these two traits are interrelated has made me inclined to be more forgiving of the perfectionism.  The test results help me look at myself holistically.

Although I understand that not everyone gets results that are so immediately recognizable, I’d still recommend giving Myers Briggs a try.