Inc. Magazine recently reported that the old standards of money, IQ, and even education have far less to do with success than personality. In fact, brain power has a nearly minuscule effect on your likelihood for success, with high IQs only factoring into the success equation for one to two percent of people. Grades and achievement tests were much better predictors of future success than IQ, though not as much as personality.
These are three reasons why knowing your specific personality traits can help you achieve greater success.
1. Knowledge is Power
It really is that simple. One interesting point the Inc. article made, however, is that personality isn’t something that is set in stone. You can, and often do, change your personality and, by doing so, your path to success.
Knowing your personality traits – those characteristics that are natural tendencies for you – gives you unparalleled power over your future success. You learn to recognize positive personality traits that lead to success while also learning how to overcome potential adversities and natural tendencies that might hinder your efforts.
When you understand your strengths and weaknesses, you can use this knowledge to create strategies to accelerate your success. Once you have identified your natural tendencies, you can use this knowledge to create a plan of action that will help you reach your goals. For example, if you know that you are naturally impatient and tend to give up easily, you can create strategies to help you stay focused and achieve your goals. You can create deadlines and break down your goals into smaller, more manageable tasks.
Additionally, you can find ways to keep yourself motivated by setting rewards for yourself when you reach certain milestones. Having knowledge about yourself and your personality allows you to use your strengths to your advantage and to work on the areas where you may be weak. With this knowledge, you can create a plan of action that will help you reach your goals. Additionally, learning about yourself can help you develop into a more well-rounded individual and create a more successful future.
2. Understand Other People Better
The desire to “know thyself” was deeply embedded in Ancient Greek culture, largely because by knowing oneself, you are better able to understand the motivations and actions of others. It isn’t merely about the ability to empathize with others, but also to anticipate the actions of others. In business, the ability to understand what motivates and drives other people can be a distinct advantage. However, failing to understand what motivates and drives you, above all others, places you at a disadvantage.
Fortunately, there are many personality tests and profiles you can take online, including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which is one of the most thorough and respected today. Not only does it help you identify your own personal strengths and weaknesses. It provides you with information and insights on how to use your strengths to your advantage. It does this while offering insights on how to overcome certain weaknesses or position yourself in industries and careers where they aren’t as detrimental. All leading up to a more successful future for you.
The MBTI isn't the only way to understand yourself, however. There are a variety of other methods you can use to uncover who you are and how you think. You can look at the way you interact with others, the patterns of behavior you find yourself in, and the values that form the foundations of your beliefs. While these methods can be less scientific than the MBTI, they can be just as effective.
You can also use journaling, both as a way to assess your thoughts and feelings, as well as to better understand the way your mind works. Writing can be a great way to explore your inner thoughts and motivations, and it’s an ideal way to explore your subconscious. You can also use reflective practices such as meditation or mindfulness to explore your feelings and emotions, and build greater self-awareness.
Lastly, you can use the power of observation to better understand yourself. By paying close attention to the way you respond to certain situations, the way you talk to yourself, and the way you interact with others, you can gain a much greater understanding of who you are. All of these methods can be used to build self-awareness, which is an essential part of knowing thyself.
3. Identify Areas Where You Are Pre-Dispositioned for Success
By understanding your personality traits, you can also identify areas where you are pre-dispositioned for success. For instance, if you are an extrovert, you may be particularly well-suited to roles that involve public speaking and sales. Similarly, if you are an introvert, you may be particularly well-suited to roles that require careful thought and consideration, such as engineering or research.
By knowing your personality traits, you can set yourself up for success by recognizing your weaknesses, understanding your strengths, and developing strategies for working effectively with others. This can help you identify the roles that you are naturally predisposed to excel in, and how to best use your natural abilities to your advantage.
Additionally, having a deep understanding of your personality traits can help you understand the motivations and behaviors of other people, making it easier to build relationships and collaborate with them.
Finally, while understanding your personality traits provides you with great power over how to use your natural tendencies to further your success, it also provides you with insights about which career paths will serve you best according to your natural tendencies. That doesn’t mean an introvert cannot become a public speaker or an excellent salesperson despite his or her best tendencies.
It does mean, however, that by knowing you’re naturally introverted, those fields may present greater challenges for you. By the same token, it can also reveal that fields that require careful thought and consideration may be outstanding choices for you, such as engineering, research, hard sciences, etc.
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Ultimately, knowing your personality traits allows you to position yourself to achieve greater success by revealing weaknesses along your path, identifying your strengths, and helping you understand others you encounter along the way.
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