By now you may be asking, "Why learn about personality type? What’s the goal?" And there’s no right answer. It changes for every individual. You may have come here because your life is not entirely working. Perhaps you’ve been flying by the seat of your pants but you don’t want to crash and burn. It’s possible you’re here because you want to understand yourself and others better, and what you thought you knew isn’t working any longer. Maybe you used to think you were right and everybody else was wrong, but these days you’re not so sure.
Several goals can be achieved by learning personality type:
- Improve relationships—at work, at home, with people in general.
- Discover more about yourself—what your most important values are, what stresses you, what direction you should be heading.
- Thrive by knowing how you behave in certain situations, and how others behave when you interact with them.
- Win friends and influence people. It’s almost a cliche nowadays, but it can happen once you understand yourself and others.
- Eliminate conflict from your close relationships by understanding how others react to what you say and, more importantly, understanding how you react to them.
But those all may seem like small, shortsighted goals—what’s the big overarching ideal?
Jung said, "Every period of life has its own psychological truth." He coined the term "individuation" to represent the goal of personality development. It’s a culmination of integrating all the facets of your multi-dimensional personality into a cohesive whole. And with this integration, we build integrity. We become conscious and responsible for how we show up in the world.
We change not by trying to be something other than we are. We change by being fully aware of who we are.
"When we know who we are, we’re freer to be who we’re not."
—Dr. Linda Berens
The ultimate purpose of learning about personality type is to help us on our journey to achieving psychological wholeness. The goal of self-discovery is self-realization, which in turn empowers individuals to fulfill their purpose in life.
I hope I have the pleasure of accompanying you on part of your journey to wholeness.
