Do we actually know ourselves.....Why should we?

Hi all, am posting this new post as I was intrigued by @igster when he said in my introduction post if Steemit is able to changes behavior of different types of people.

So here I am posting about what I learnt and discover about myself and the importance to know the personalities of others when I went through a leadership course about 2 months back which was organised by my company for its staff. And the session we had was discovering and understanding our personality through using Myer-Briggs Type tool. The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is an introspective self-report questionnaire designed to indicate psychological preferences in how people perceive the world around them and make decisions. I am sure many here would have gone similar assessments so I wouldn’t go into too much details on the technical of it. Am sure there are many more experts in Steemit would have more knowledge of it than me.

So basically, the questionnaire contains questions which categorise our personalities in 4 areas as shown in the attached picture below. Everyone does have all 8 personalities inside them but it is just that most of us have a certain natural preference towards one in each pair. In my case, I have the personalities of Introversion, Sensing, Thinking and Judging.

I am guessing most of you would be now thinking..

Since what I have said is what most of you can find on the internet so what is there to learn. Most of us learn things but chances are we do not actually apply it. So here’s my key takeaways from the session which I hope will be useful to some:

• There is no good or bad personality. Everyone is different and it is important to understand this point.

• By understanding the personalities of ourselves, will we know what our strengths are and what we can improve on.

• We should not ASSUME or stereotype. By understanding the various personalities, then will we be aware of the personalities of the people so to better appreciate the helpful ways that people differ from one another. For example, most people would assume Introverts as uninterested since introverts do not talk much. But contrary to that, introverts process information and thoughts within themselves and if anyone of you is happening to be working with an Introvert, which I am one myself, rather than to ignore the person totally, one should present or make opportunities to allow introverts to present their thoughts and ideas. Sometimes, we need that soft push.

As Sun Tzi's said,

“Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories”.

Hence, after knowing the various personalities, i do make a more conscientious effort to observe people to see what their personalities are to be able to more effectively engage them. So for those who have a chance to go for such self-discovery sessions, do urge you to attend them. It can make a big difference to us.

So to kind of answer @igster’s thoughts of whether Steemit is able to change behavior of different types of people or get “sleepers” to be more active, I would say it would be a YES. Since Steemit is a platform where contents are forming every minute every second, there will definitely be something to piqued the interest of everyone and anyone. For an introvert like me, one of my characteristics is i prefer to pen down my thoughts rather than to verbalise it hence this is good platform for me as an introvert.

Feel free to comment or give any opinions 😊 Thanks for reading.