To Suit Yourself, You Must Know Yourself, Part 2

Do What You Are: Discover the Perfect Career for You Through the Secrets of Personality Type
by Paul D. Tieger, Barbara Barron-Tieger

(Page 3 of 3)

After talking with us, Joanne was relieved to discover that she wasn't crazy; she was just in the wrong career. As her early counselors had determined, Joanne had many of the right qualifications for teaching. However, the things she found most stimulating- intellectual challenge, opportunities to raise her level of competence, and creative innovation-were totally lacking in her job. Moreover, the public school setting forced her to work in a highly structured and detailed way, which was not at all the way she liked to operate.

Luckily, the solution quickly became clear. We suggested that Joanne return to school and obtain a master's degree in order to teach math- still a thriving interest of hers - in higher education. In a college setting, she would be able to enjoy much more flexibility in her work schedule and obligations, teach more complicated courses, and be part of an intellectual environment.

Joanne did get a master's degree, and shortly thereafter she accepted a position in the math department of a small college. Today she teaches graduate-level math courses while continuing her studies toward obtaining a Ph.D.

There's also another reason why the traditional approach to career counseling is inadequate. The "big three"- your abilities, interests, and values- all change with age. As you gain work experience, you gain new skills. As you live longer, you may pick up new interests and discard old ones. And often your goals are different later in life than they were earlier. You can keep changing your career according to where you find yourself at a particular point in time, or you can base your choice from the beginning on a deeper understanding of who you are (and who you'll always be!).

Alex is a thirty-nine-year-old internist with a successful practice in a Chicago suburb. While he was growing up it was always assumed that he would follow in the family tradition and become a doctor. Through twelve years of college, medical school, internship, and residency, he never allowed himself to question his decision. After practicing medicine for five years, he has come to a painful conclusion with far-reaching implications for himself and his family: he doesn't want to be a doctor any more. What's more, he realizes he probably never did. Alex's predicament is not unusual. If you doubt this, pick any ten people you know and ask them, "If you could have any job you wanted, what would it be?" Our experience as career counselors suggests that at least half would rather be doing something else.

Most of us make our most important career decisions when we are least prepared to do so. The decisions we make early in life set into motion a chain of events that will influence our entire lives. Yet when we're young we have little or no experience making job choices, and we tend to have an overabundance of idealistic enthusiasm, plus a reckless lack of concern for future consequences. We haven't lived long enough to see ourselves tested in a variety of situations, and we're highly susceptible to bad advice from well-intentioned parents, teachers, counselors, or friends. No wonder so many people get off to a poor start.

The solution? To achieve as great a degree of self-awareness as you can before making any decision with long-lasting career consequences. Happily, "finding yourself " does not require a guru, a lot of money, or any period of experimentation.

You Can't Help It - You Were Born That Way!

Since the right job flows directly out of all the elements of your personality type, you need to spend some time figuring out what makes you tick. By making a conscious effort to discover the "real you," you can learn how to focus your natural strengths and inclinations into a career you can love for as long as you choose to work. This is where Type is so helpful. It provides a systematic, effective way to evaluate both your strong points and your probable weaknesses or blind spots. Once you have these figured out, you'll know how to make sure you are always operating from a position of strength.

Each one of us has a distinct personality, like an innate blueprint that stays with us for life. We are born with a personality type, we go through life with that type, and when we are laid to rest (hopefully at the end of a long and fruitful life), it is with the same type.

Now you are probably wondering, "Wait a minute. I might be one way sometimes, but at other times I'm a very different person. Doesn't the situation influence my personality type?"

The answer is no, it doesn't. Do we change our behavior in certain situations? Certainly! Most human beings have a tremendous repertoire of behaviors available to them. We couldn't function very successfully if we didn't. Sure, we act differently at work than we do at home, and it makes a difference whether we're with strangers, close friends, at a ball park, or at a funeral. But people don't change their basic personalities with every new door they walk through.

All this is not to say that environmental factors are not extremely important; they are. Parents, siblings, teachers, and economic, social, and political circumstances all can play a role in determining what directions our lives take. Some people are forced by circumstances to act in a certain way until they are literally "not themselves" (more about this later. But we all start off with a particular personality type that predisposes us to behave in certain ways for our entire lives.

If you are skeptical about the idea that personality type is inborn, take a look at different children from the same family. These could be your own children, your siblings, or even children from a family you know. Do they have different personalities? You bet they do, and often the differences are apparent from birth (or even in utero).

The concept of "personality type" is not new. People have always been aware of the similarities and differences between individuals, and over the centuries many systems and models for understanding or categorizing these differences have been developed. Today, our understanding of human behavior has been expanded to such a degree that we are now able to accurately identify sixteen distinctly different personality types.

Finding the right job for each of these distinct personalities may seem like an awesome task. However, all sixteen personality types do function in the world. As we will see, it is possible to identify your own personality type and the types of others, to understand why certain types flourish in certain kinds of jobs, and to clarify why people find career satisfaction in different ways.

© 2007 by Paul and Barbara Tieger

About the Author

Paul D. Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger have been married for many years, and are internationally recognized experts in the application of Personality Type. Their other books include the bestselling Do What You Are, Nurture by Nature, and, most recently, The Art of SpeedReading People. They live in West Hartford, Connecticut.

Paul D. Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger have been married for many years, and are internationally recognized experts in the application of Personality Type. Their other books include the bestselling Do What You Are, Nurture by Nature, and, most recently, The Art of SpeedReading People. They live in West Hartford, Connecticut.