Annie:
Welcome to the whole Assistant podcast. I'm your host, Annie Croner. I'm a former assistant who's passionate about our profession, and I'm also a certified coach who's invested in your success. You've come to the right place if you want to know what it looks like to stand in your power and achieve success as an assistant free from overwhelm and burnout. Now on to today's episode. Hello. So we are covering a fun topic today. I'm going to share my perspective on any type of personality test.
Annie:
So, working style test, personality assessments like disc clifton, strengths, finders, Myers Briggs, any of those type of personality based assessments. I love personally to take those assessments, for sure. I find them really insightful and helpful in a myriad of ways, and we can tend to ingest things around those that we may not be aware of. So some of the benefits of taking these tests, they can give us a snapshot of our strengths, our working style, personality traits at any point in time, which there, again, can give you insight into yourself. And you know me, I'm a big fan of self awareness and of bringing awareness to those strengths and those weaknesses. When it comes to our interactions with others, they can help us proceed with confidence in areas we're strong in, and they can also help us understand others and understand the team dynamics. So if you've ever taken a test as a group activity, then you'll understand what I mean. So when you get the test back, you can be like, oh, my, executives are red and I'm a green.
Annie:
You're going to have a deeper understanding of how your executive's brain works, and you'll be able to better communicate with him. Assessments can also be helpful in navigating those trickier relationships. Maybe your pickle person who's driving you nuts, maybe somebody in the office that you don't jive well with, it can give you insight into them as well. So I like personality assessments for that reason, for these reasons, and like working style assessments for these reasons. However, there can be a lot of drawbacks, and this has come up a few times in my coaching practice. So I just want to share what some of those drawbacks can be that I have witnessed with clients firsthand and then also witnessed with friends and things like that as well. So the first drawback that can happen when you take these personality assessments are compare and despair. We're comparing our personality assessment or our working style assessment with someone else's working style assessment, and we get jealous.
Annie:
We want to have what they have. We think that we should be showing up the way that they're showing up. And what ends up happening is we set aside our own strengths and we aren't focused on where we're strong. And we try to not even try. We just recognize and realize that this person has other strengths that we want. And so it can be very discouraging. Another thing that I see as well is a lot of self judgment around your kind of categorical allotment. Right.
Annie:
So I've coached a number of assistants who've actually experienced shame around their assessment, and I think that what's happening here is that a lot of people are blindly accepting these assessments. We're taking this feedback as just the way it is, and I can't change and having those type of thoughts. And so you resign yourself to your assessment, you resign yourself to being just the way it is. And I can't improve and I can't change or grow. This is just the way it is now. That's okay if you like some of the things in your assessment, to grab onto those things and to really build on that and to take it to new levels and to take it to new heights and to really leverage that information if it's serving you. But I see this often where there's a part of the personality assessment or a part of the working style assessment that rubs you the wrong way, and there's just a lot of self judgment around how you're interpreting it and how it's rubbing you. It's just a lot of harshness and shame around that.
Annie:
We think that it also is set in stone now and forever. Like, this is my personality. This is just the way it is. I've been like this for forever, and this can be really demotivating when it comes to growth and change. So it can be extremely self limiting. Because if this is just the way it is, then why bother to grow? Actually, I read a book a while back that I'm going to share with you now. It's called personality isn't permanent by Benjamin Hardy. And this is a really great book to read if you get what I'm talking about.
Annie:
When I talk about quietly resigning to your personality style or working style or personality assessment or whatever it is, if you are quietly resigning to that, then this book is a great place to start. And it's also very eye opening as well. So I just want us to think about personality assessments in a new way. You have the power to change or shape your identity always. So even though there may be things in your personality that are not your favorite. You can always shift your identity around those things. You can always shift your judgment around those things. You can always either choose to accept and onboard an identity or not.
Annie:
And so when you take these personality assessments, I really want you to take them with a grain of salt and realize that you have so much more power than you think to grow and change. And this is just a snapshot in time of your personality or of your working style. It does not have to be like this for forever. And then also recognize and realize these assessments, by their very nature, are categorizing you into a category. It's the job of all these tests to place you into a group. Think about it, right? Think about it and think about someone else who has your same working style. Are you exactly the same? Of course not. Of course you're not.
Annie:
You're the only version of you. Nobody has your dna. Nobody is a carbon copy of you. Nobody. Everybody is different. And so when you think about the fact that these tests are categorizing people into categories very specifically, just know that you're not going to fit into any one category wholly. You're just not. Because you're your own unique person.
Annie:
You have your own unique strengths. You have your own unique weaknesses. So the result of any personality strengths working style test will be limited. For this reason, their categories, there is only one you. So you get to decide what you make the result of any test mean about you. You can let it hold you back. You can say, game on and decide to improve yourself. You can show up with greater levels of self acceptance of where you are right now and also have the eye on the prize of where you want to go and who you want to become.
Annie:
I feel like, for me, I have shifted my identity so many times throughout my life. Early on, I was really, really a good student. And then at one point, my mom actually talked to me about this. I wasn't a very good math student in high school, in junior high. And my sister got straight a's. And my mom came to me one time, I had a c in math. And she's like, you know, Annie, if you would just apply yourself, you could get a's too. And I looked at her in that moment and, like, I could, but just doesn't matter to me enough to actually do.
Annie:
Like, I'm fine with the c. And what's really fascinating about that is then I went on to college, and I was in lighting design classes, which is way heavy into math. Way heavy. And because it was applied, I actually wanted to learn the math. And so early on, I believed that I wasn't good at math until I got to college. And I'm like, I'm actually really strong in math. It's just that I needed it applied in a certain and very visual way in order for it to make sense to me. And so I think even those beliefs that we have about ourselves, if we're creating a belief around a result of a personality assessment or a working style assessment, it's just a dangerous thing to do, right? Because you can change anything you want to change about yourself.
Annie:
I truly believe this. And there are those things that I have chosen to accept about myself and still work on from a place of love instead of from a place of judgment and being harsh with myself. I know that there are certain seasons of my life that I'm going to be a bit more terse with people, and certain seasons of my life where I'm going to be a bit softer. And they're based on the circumstances going on around me. And that doesn't mean anything bad about me. It just means that I need to bring some more self awareness to those parts and pieces and show up for myself with love and compassion. And from that place, you change. And often we think that the only way we're going to change is if we beat ourselves up.
Annie:
And then we think that we can't change, because then, oh, by the way, we took this personality assessment and this is just the way it is. I don't believe that's true for any of us. So I hope you found this episode helpful. I know it's really short and sweet, but I just wanted to talk about this. And if you're facing a new personality assessment or a working style assessment, or maybe even took the disc or whatever, if there's a part of that that you don't like, get curious with yourself. Ask yourself what it is that you don't like about that piece or that element, right? And then work on that weakness, if you so choose. Or lean into your strengths if you so choose, you get to decide how you show up for everything, all of it. You get to decide how you show up for a Clifton strengths finder, a disc assessment.
Annie:
And to be honest with you, looking at everybody else's assessments and judging yourself based off of their assessments is just a failing proposition. It's not going to get you to where you want to go, and also resigning yourself to your assessment is also not going to get you to where you want to go. The only thing that's going to get you to where you want to go is deciding on purpose and then taking active steps to get there and then also recognizing and realizing where your strengths are coming into play and how you're downplaying your strengths. That's kind of another interesting thing about assessments, is that we think that what we're good at, everyone else around us is good at, too. And I know I say this all the time on this podcast, but common sense isn't that common. And your strengths are your unique strengths. So don't downplay them, don't write them off, which we often do. I think a lot of times what comes easily and naturally to us, we're so quick to dismiss.
Annie:
But I really want to encourage you to leverage those things, to grow those things, to recognize those things as value adds in your life, for yourself and for your organization as well. So this is one area which I know a lot of us are holding ourselves back, and a lot of us are judging ourselves for our assessment style or for the bucket that we happen to be put into based on an assessment, right? So I just want to bring some awareness to this for you guys. I just want you to consider and think about the fact that you are a whole, unique human that is unlike anybody else on the face of the planet, and you bring unique things to your work environment. Unique strengths, unique qualities. And it can be the perfect and most beautiful blend if you let it. And if you want to work on a weakness, work on those, too. But do it from a place of self love, not from a place of judgment. Okay, my friends, that is what I have for you guys today.
Annie:
Be intentional. Be whole. That is all for now. I help assistants apply the concepts I share on this podcast. If you're ready to take your growth deeper and you're curious whether working with me in a coaching capacity is right for you, please email me at [email protected] to schedule your complimentary discovery call.
