Personal Growth:  What You Need To Know

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The most important realization, perhaps, an individual can make while searching for personal growth is knowing that there is not one single formula defining the path of personal success.  Since everyone has different priorities and goals, different attitudes and activities can make everyone feel good about themselves.  Different weaknesses and natural strengths are a part of inherent type of personality.  As individuals, how can we feel our lives are successful?

Know And Understand What’s Important to You

Each type of personality has a different concept of what it means to be successful.  You can achieve personal success if you use a common goal known as self-knowledge.  Instead of being hung up on other’s ideas of what it means, you need to be aware of what success truly means to you!  You might have important influencers and role models in your life who may have quite different basic values from your own.  It is important, if this is the case, to recognize that discrepancy is due to a perspective difference between what you personally believe to be actually important and what you were taught to be truly important.  If you spend your effort and time trying to meet the success of someone else’s idea and belittle or ignore and conflicting messages from your own psyche, then you will find yourself unhappy and exhausted.  It is a major step to realize true importance to achieve personal success.

Do Not Hide Behind Your Recognized Weaknesses

It can be very liberating to realize your true goals and improve your self-knowledge, but you shouldn’t discard the society rules in which you live.  You must recognize that other people’s value systems are not less important than your own.  You must also recognize and accept that you live in a society in which certain behaviors and personality types are more suited towards certain particular tasks.  This is the second key opening doors towards your personal growth.

There are situations, for example, that are more effective and appropriate to show feeling (caring and compassion), rather than thinking (impersonal logic).  There are likewise situations that using impersonal logic for decision making is more effective and appropriate than the more subjective viewpoint of the feeling function.  If you have a preference for feeling, you will have a natural advantage over thinkers when a situation arises that requires awareness and compassion of someone else’s emotions.  Conversely, if you prefer the thinking method, you will have a natural advantage in situations that require you to make an impersonal data decision.

You are empowered while learning about your personality type and types of others with an understanding of the reasons why people react to different situations differently.  You can better understand and accept people’s different behaviors when put into Psychological Type context.  As individuals, these insights are very powerful and useful.  You must not, however, use the excuse of personality type for inappropriate behavior.  You should recognize that everyone’s personality type has weaknesses, but you must use your knowledge to conquer the weaknesses rather than to excuse bad behavior.  You can’t control other’s behavior, however, you can control your own!

Strive for Balance

Dominate function overtaking your personality to the point that all the other functions become slaves to it is the result of most weaknesses associated with any given personality type.  Even though it is normal and natural for your personality to be ruled by the dominate function, it can become a problem when the other functions are unable to fully develop because they are too busy serving the dominate function and can become very imbalanced.

When a personality dominate function overshadows the other functions, it is analogous to a king ruling a kingdom that requires servitude and as far as he knows, everybody and everything only exists to serve him.  He has no success concept beyond his daily needs and cannot see beyond them, therefore the entire kingdom suffers.

Success and Balance, as you can see are relative terms and have different meaning for each of the sixteen types of personalities.  The key to success is balance!

Opening the Door

How do you realize what is truly important to you and how do you recognize your weaknesses, as well as learn how to not hide behind them?  How do you balance yourself and open that door to show the path to personal success and growth?

There is no quick way to make yourself a successful person.  A powerful aid in your excellence quest is Psychological Type, however, this is not an actual solution.  It is a way to help you understand human nature, which will help you find, follow and expand your door to success.  Being aware and accepting that on function of personality function might be more effective than another in certain situations will assist you in understanding personal growth relevance to your life.  

- Erin