Discover What Makes Your Personality Unique

It’s important for each of us to understand our personality and how we were created. When you understand your personality, you can see behavioral trends, strengths, and weaknesses. If you apply this knowledge, you have the power to become the best version of yourself. You also begin to understand and respect how and why others are different from you. These tests don’t give you an excuse for certain behaviors, but may help you understand why you do them, and how you can adjust and work on certain areas. Learning different facets of what make you and your personality unique will help you understand not only your strengths and weaknesses, but also:

• Your behaviors when you are healthy
• Your behaviors when you are unhealthy
• How you feel loved
• How you love others
• What careers and opportunities may be most attractive for you
• How you learn best
• The people you tend to work best with and why
• How to lead and relate to people who are different than you
• The area you are most intelligent in
• How your gifts fit into God’s Kingdom.

If these sound like things you want to discover, read on!

Enneagram

I’m starting with this one because it has become all the rage in the past handful of years. The Enneagram is one of the more complex personality tests. It consists of 9 different types, depicted on a circle with 9 points, each represented by the numbers 1-9. 1 is The Reformer, 2 is The Helper, 3 is The Achiever, 4 is The Individualist, 5 is The Investigator, 6 is The Loyalist, 7 is The Enthusiast, 8 is The Challenger, and 9 is The Peacemaker.

Depending on your number, you also have a “wing” either one number ahead of or below your number. For example, if you are a 7, you can have a wing of either 6 or 8 that you tend to lean towards more. Your wing will only be the number above or below your main number. So let’s say you score the highest as a 1, and then as an 8, and then as a 9. You wouldn’t be a 1 wing 8, you would be a 1 wing 9 because 9 is immediately next to 1. To find your wing, determine the number above and below your main number, then see which one you scored higher in.

On top of a wing, you also will have one of the following instinctual variants, or subtypes: social, sexual, or self-preservation. The instinctual variants are less popular, but still cool to explore, as they explain if you prefer to relate more in a group (social), one-on-one (sexual), or self-preservation (with yourself).

The reason I said that this personality test is complex is because you have your personality number, but you also have a different number that you go to in health and another that you go to in distress. For example, if you are an 8, that is your number. But a healthy 8 appears to have the characteristics of a 2, and an unhealthy 8 appears to have the characteristics of a 5. On top of that you have different Triads, or groupings of three, based on things like, how you process information, which emotions are most dominant, etc. This is just a general introduction here, but there’s lots to explore with the Enneagram. I have found several Enneagram accounts on Instagram that have helped me understand my type. You can find out yours with this free test here.

The 5 Love Languages

This one has also become very popular, and for good reason. The 5 Love Languages is a book by Gary Chapmanmdescribing the 5 most common styles in which people give and receive love. They are: Acts of Service, Physical Touch, Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, and Gift-Giving. I highly recommend reading the book for insight into this subject. It will change the way you view and love people. If you are single, you can buy the single version on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. If you are married, you can buy the original version on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. The free quiz to find out your love language is located here.

Bonus: The author of The 5 Love Languages, Gary Chapman, also has a quiz to find out your apology style.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (also called Jung Typology) consists of 4 letters. Each letter represents 1 of 2 possible characteristics: E or I for Extroverted or Introverted; S or N for Sensing or Intuition; T or F for Thinking or Feeling; and J or P for Judging or Perceiving. For example, you may get a result of INFP, meaning Introverted, Intuition, Feeling, Perceiving. There are 16 possible personality combinations with this typing. The 2 tests I like best for this are on Human Metrics and 16 Personalities. I recommend taking both so you can get a feel for how consistent your results are. They are both free and offer great descriptions of each personality type on their sites. You can read descriptions on Human Metrics and 16 Personalities.

The 4 Temperaments

            Choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic, and melancholy are what are known as the 4 Temperaments. In Ancient Greece, personality was described by different proportions of 4 different body fluids, hence the weird names of these types. We don’t believe body fluid proportions influence personality today, but we do see these 4 basic personality types across the population. You’ll also see that these basic personalities correspond with several other personality tests that represent each temperament as an animal, color, or word (as in DISC, which we’ll talk about next). Even the Harry Potter houses seem to be modeled similarly to this test. I learned a lot about my temperament, as well as the temperaments of others, how to interact with them, etc. by reading Wired That Way by Marita Littauer. She includes a test in her book, which you can find on her website, on Amazon, or on Barnes and Noble. If you just want to take her test you can buy it here. There are free versions of this test online, but I have not found one that accurately typed me (I know this because I type the exact same way on all personality tests that have 4 types, including Marita Littauer’s).

DISC Assessment

This test is often the version used in the workplace. The word DISC is represented by the first letter of each of the 4 main personality types it highlights: Dominant, Influencing, Steadiness (I’ve also seen it as Stability), and Conscientiousness (I’ve also seen it as Cautious). You can take it for free here and here.

Strenthsfinders 2.0

            The results for this test consist of themes that explain your talents and strengths. There are 34 in total and include themes like Arranger, Activator, Connectedness, and Restorative. What I like about this test is that it is 177 rapid-fire questions with a time limit. You have to choose your answers quickly, so you are forced to go with your first instinct. But there’s also enough questions to ensure your results are accurate. And let me tell you, this test was extremely accurate for me; The descriptions fit me to a T. You can choose from two different results packages (the test is the same for both). One allows you to see all 34 themes ranked in order for you. The other gives you your top 5 themes. You can buy the book or just the code. You will get all the information you need about your top themes in your results, but the book allows you to have all of the themes in one place to look through. It’s not really a book you read cover-to-cover, it’s more like a mini encyclopedia. If you buy the book, the code you get with it is only for discovering your top 5 themes, not all 34 in their proper order for you.

You can buy the book directly from Gallup, from Barnes and Noble, or from Amazon. If you just want the code and not the book you can buy the test to find your top 5 themes here, or you can purchase all 34 here.

VAK Learning Style

The VAK stands for Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic (I have also seen Kinesthetic referred to as Tactile), and explains how you learn best. You can also think of these styles as seeing, hearing, and doing. You can take the quiz on Education Planner and Pro Prof. After you get your results, there is in-depth information from Education Planner and Mind Tools to help you understand and maximize your learning style.

Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences

You’ve probably heard the terms “book smart” and “street smart,” but intelligence is much more than an IQ, grades, or even EQ (emotional intelligence quotient). Have you ever seen the cartoon of different animals given a test for climbing a tree? The monkey is the one who was created to excel at this type of test, but that doesn’t mean the elephant or the giraffe are stupid; they just have different gifts. This is good news, especially to those who didn’t do well in school, because maybe this is the first time you are hearing that you can be intelligent in a way that’s different than what intelligence looks like within the school system. Howard Gardner breaks intelligence down into 7 different areas: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial-visual, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. You can discover which intelligences you excel at with this free test.

Spiritual Gifts

The spiritual gifts tests assesses the following gifts given to us by God: Administration, Apostleship, Discernment, Evangelism, Exhortation, Faith, Giving, Healing, Interpretation, Knowledge, Leadership, Mercy, Miracles, Pastor/Shepherd, Prophecy, Service, Teaching, Tongues, and Wisdom. You can learn more about each gift and its biblical basis here. Your completed assessment gives you in-depth descriptions of your top 3 gifts, but it will also rank how you scored for all the other gifts. You create a log-in, but the test is free here.

It always fascinates me how different each of us is, with so many layers. You may have two cholerics, but one’s love language is words of affirmation, and the other’s is acts of service; one is a visual learner, and the other is kinesthetic. All of these different personality test results, when combined, reveal someone who God created as truly unique. When you have an awareness of your uniqueness and apply this knowledge, you can continue to grow into who God created you and called you to be. This post goes over a lot of information, so I created a free printout to keep track of all your results as you take each test. Fill out the form below to receive it!