Why I Love MBTI!

I really LOVE the MBTI and I LOVE the effect it has when working with women (It works for men too; but I primarily work with women). M.B.T.I. stands for Myers Briggs Type Indicator and you can find more factual details about it via this link.

Why?

I tend to love it more for what it’s not. A lot of psychological profiling is very judgemental, the MBTI is not. It won’t fill you full of ’should’ and ‘oughts’ or worse give you as sense of inadequacy. It simply helps you understand yourself in greater depth.

When I was doing my post graduate training in social work we were often subjected to (I use the word advisedly) various psychological tests to determine our attitudes, suitability for the role etc. I rarely found these helpful or enlightening. Standard tools and questionnaires work on a right or wrong approach; there is a yardstick by which you are judged, a perfect way to be.

For example, consider assertiveness. If you take an assertiveness questionnaire (and I confess, I do sometimes use one when training to promote discussion and debate) it will assume that there is a degree of assertiveness that is desirable. That will probably be measured at 100% with any score coming at over 80% being good. It can’t take into account the fact that you are totally assertive at work but find it hard to tell your sister in law that you want to stay home next Christmas! And if you feel perfectly comfortable with your assertiveness levels but come in at 65% you may feel a bit of  a failure.

No Pass or Fail

You cannot pass or fail the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. There is no right or wrong, no 100% score to achieve, there is just you. You are always in control. It is one of the most respected profiling tools in the world and one with a very high retest probability. Which in laywomen’s terms means you have a high chance of getting the same answers however many times you take it! (The only exception to this is if it’s taken when young, while our personalities are still developing).

Team Work

Although the M.B.T.I is often used in groups and can be great for helping teams understand each other, I personally will only use it for the first time it in a one to one situation.  I trained at the original MBTI college in the U.S and part of my ethical contract with them is that results are always confidential to the individual. The individual must be given space and time to fully understand and agree with their type before being asked if they are happy to share.

Peer Pressure

In my experience it is not possible to do this in a group situation; the pressure of peers to join in (however subtle and unintentional) can be too great. That said, if all team members are genuinely happy to talk about their result, and genuinely happy with the type they have, it can be a phenomenal tool in promoting understanding!

If you’re interested in discovering more about yourself using the M.B.T.I. either as a one off session or part of a coaching package, please do give me a call on 01761 438749  or email me. I have a great special offer running throughout the Spring!

MBTI, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Myers-Briggs, the MBTI logo and Introduction to Type are registered trademarks of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Trust. Strong Interest Inventory, FIRO-B, SkillsOne, and Davies-Black are registered trademarks and CPI 260, CPI, California Psychological Inventory, the CPP logo, the FIRO-B logo and the CPI 260 logo are trademarks of CPP, Inc.

Inspire Yourself!

Here’s a tip to inspire yourself and to help keep your motivation going!

When I’m running my own seminars and courses I often get participants to write to themselves for delivery at a future point. And I’ve recommended writing down your aims in previous blog posts.

It can be really helpful to write down what you want to do, how you are feeling at a particular point in your life, and how you want to feel at a point in the future. Or maybe write down stages you need to reach to achieve your goals and aspirations. For example, by June I will have written two chapters of my book and researched possible publishers! It really helps to put it in writing.

And now you can get it sent to yourself in the future! There is a web site futureme.org where you can do just that! It could be really helpful in keeping your motivation going! Not as helpful as attending one of my courses obviously….but helpful all the same!

If you try it do let me know how you get on? And how do you keep your motivation going?

Personal Development or Training?

 I had a great conversation recently with one of my clients. She had come to me initially for some coaching about advancing her career. I am not specifically a career coach so we talked for some time before committing to anything on either side. And as we talked it became apparent that she knew exactly what she needed to do to get on but the issue was one of confidence and belief in actually doing it!

She had tried various training courses but they didn’t help. Not because they weren’t good training courses; they sounded excellent, but because she wasn’t psychologically in a place to make best use of the information. She didn’t actually need any skills based TRAINING at that point in time, she needed some personal development.

Training

Although people (including me) often use ‘training’ to describe what I do it’s not particularly accurate. When I am running one of my courses I am not offering traditional training, I am offering an opportunity to reflect, grow and develop in a way personal to you.

Key Differences.

If you attend a training course it’s likely to be work oriented, and skills based. You may attend a training course on manual handling, for example. A manual handling course is often mandatory in particular fields- you have to attend and you have to come away with a piece of paper that says you’ve attended and met a required standard. The person teaching the course has a list of competencies or skills to teach you.

Or your firm may have introduced a new computer system and all employees have to understand how it works so have to either enrol on line or undertake a short course, or turn up for some hands on experience and tuition.

What these have in common is everyone is taught exactly the same way, with the same information. Even if you begin with quite a bit of knowledge on manual handling or the computer system you still receive the same input; there are ‘correct’ answers that you have to give at the end of the day. You can benchmark yourself against others and see how well (or otherwise) you are doing compared with others.

Personal Development

When you undertake personal development everything you have ever done is relevant, regardless of your status or age, or educational achievements. No judgements about your abilities are made.

In personal development, be it through a course or coaching, there are no right answers to strive for. Everyone is unique and everyone has a different response. Never compare yourself to anyone else. You don’t pass or fail, you simply develop. And how you develop depends on so many different factors but most of all on the uniqueness of you.

So you could attend a personal development course one year and maybe get something from it but it may not be especially life changing. Yet you could attend that self same course six months later and because of where you are at (figuratively speaking) in your life it totally transforms you.

For example, someone may be on one of my courses at exactly the right moment for them and it really does set them off on a new path. So, when I ask if anyone wants to make a comment, they stand up and proudly announce that this opportunity to evaluate their life means they are now going to give up the day job, learn eye surgery (in Flemish) and explore Timbuktu riding backwards on a donkey!

However, if you are sitting in the same group you may be thinking to yourself:

“Well, this period of reflection has been great. I think I’m going to join the local library and get a book out on being more assertive”

The point is personal development is exactly that, personal. Don’t compare, don’t set yourself impossible goals, simply be honest and allow the thoughts to do what they will. It’s for you, not a test or exam. Neither is right or wrong; you are simply exploring what is right for you at any particular time in your life with someone who is not judging you in any way, but focussed on helping you be the best you can be.

Coaching

Similarly with coaching; sometime clients come to me having been talking with friends and colleagues who have made enormous life changes following coaching. But coaching is another form of personal development- you don’t pass or fail. You get what you need at the time from it and a good coach will help you identify what is right for you. And that’s rarely what worked for someone else. It’s your life - what is important to you is what matters. So never compare yourself with others.

Another difference with personal development or coaching is that it is entirely voluntary. You cannot be ordered to have coaching or go on a personal development course. (Well, I guess you could but it would probably be a worthless experience for you!)

Research

One point that may be of interest; the Springboard Consultancy commissioned some research a few years back looking at the effectiveness of this type of coaching/personal development work. What they discovered was that managers noticed a positive difference in staff who undertook personal development work; they returned more focussed on problem solving than complaining about what was wrong and they coped better with change. And even more interestingly, women who had done some personal development felt that the effects of it went well beyond the actual time they were doing it. In fact, most said they really began to feel the full effects about 12 months afterwards as they began to see the fruits of the changes they had made in their lives.

And Finally

Back to my coaching client from paragraph one! What she actually rang me to tell me was that she now realised she didn’t want to go on in her career but had been swept along by other people’s expectations of her. The opportunity to reflect had allowed her to seriously think about what she wanted from her life and it wasn’t the role she currently had. She wanted to let me know that she had decided upon a different path and was actually setting up her own part time business which sat very happily with her value base and need for some autonomy. She was being true to herself!

A  Coaching Question

A simple question to leave with you to ponder upon:

If you had no fear and you could do one thing to improve the quality of your life as it is right now, what would it be?

Love Yourself!

Do you? Love yourself that is? I don’t mean in the ‘I am wonderful, better than anyone else’ obnoxious kind of way, but do you value and respect yourself?

Sometimes events in our lives have caused us to feel unloveable and it’s hard to shake the negativity off. In fact, sometimes a good deal more than a metaphorical shake is required to rid ourselves of notions acquired by the experiences of life. (But hang onto the wisdom those same events have given you!) We are what we think. As we think so we act.

So, answer honestly, do you love yourself? Would you be friends with yourself? What are the loveable things about you? (There will be loads and if you’re having trouble answering that question take some time to think about it. If you’re still struggling consider asking for some outside help). Think differently about yourself and how you behave will be different.

Write down the reasons you are loveable and likeable.

This is not about achievements, although considering your achievements will help you determine some of your likeable and loveable qualities. It’s about your qualities: loyalty, kindness, honesty, humour, ethics, values, and so on.

When you love yourself it becomes easier to make positive changes in your life; you lose some of the fear around change. More importantly, you believe that you deserve some positive change! Powerful motivators for achieving your goals!

If you’ve found this post helpful, you, or a friend, may be interested in my next RenewYou course.

Are You Following YOUR Dream?

I know it sounds like a daft question, but if you feel you never quite achieve some of your aims and aspirations ask yourself,

‘Is this my goal, my dream, or have I taken on someone else’s? Is this something I really want to do or is it something I think I should be doing?’

For example, when I’m coaching we’ll sometimes find ourselves ’stuck’ at a particular point with the coachee reluctant to take the steps needed to fully realise their ambition.

So here are some of the coaching questions I often ask in order to help them tease out their level of motivation:

• What will achieving this goal mean for you?
• If you achieve this goal what else will it bring you?
• What might stop you having what you want?
• How will achieving this goal affect other people in your life?
• What or who do you think is biggest barrier in fully realising this goal?
• If you could wave a wand and achieve your goal right now, would you be happy?

If you’re feeling a bit stuck with your progress, try honestly answering these questions. Try and visualise yourself having achieved the goal and see how your life looks. If you listen to your inner voice you should know whether this is something YOU really want.

Happy in Your Work?

When did you last have a really good day at work?

When you came home and felt that was a day well spent?

When you were filled with a huge sense of achievement?

When you thought ‘job well done’ and other people acknowledged your efforts?

I hope you can remember this easily and it will have been recently. But if not, try and think back to what when it last happened and how you felt it about it.  Your thoughts on this subject will give you a big clue about where you should be looking for that next job.

Team Work?

If it included working as a team, maybe that’s when you perform best. Or maybe you were given a project to see through to completion making full use of all your completer/finisher and organisational skills? Perhaps you had to take a few risks and learn something new? Or maybe you were flying high working in an area that feels really comfortable to you?

It’s all really vital information in helping your longer term planning about positioning yourself where you want to be!

And if you’re still  feeling really stuck there are plenty of practical exercises in ‘When Work Isn’t Working’ which could really help move you on to finding the job that is a dream for you!