There’s a lot of talk about channeling your best personality traits, both in work and in life in general. And while that’s great, in practice this tends to slip down the priority list in the face of daily life, so a lot of people never really get around to it. If you’ve been wishing that you could really start playing up your best traits but aren’t quite sure how to do it, here are our best tips for getting started.
Know what they are
If you’re not totally sure what your best personality traits are, then there’s no way that you can really successfully channel them, so start by taking a reputable test to find out more about yourself. There are loads of industry-specific ones, but the Myers-Briggs is a solid general one. You can even go further and take perception tests like the one at How to Fascinate so you can see how your personality traits are coming across to other people now. This will give you a good starting point for your channeling — by knowing your personal baseline, as well as how you’re coming across, you can then modify accordingly.
Start small
Once you know what you’re working with, choose just one or two to focus on channeling. It’s better to keep yourself very focused, especially at the beginning, so that you don’t end up spreading yourself too thin. You want to get really good at channeling your best personality traits, not sort of OK at tapping into many of them.
Practice, practice, practice
As with anything, you’ll only get better at channeling your best personality traits if you make it a practice. So make sure that you’re actively seeking out situations in which you can make the most of your natural advantages so that you can get the real world experience of putting them into practice.
Play your strengths, outsource things that lie in your weaknesses
There’s no point in wishing that you had different innate strengths or personality traits. While you can do a lot to change your actions, trying to change your personality is a huge waste of time and energy, so instead, focus on your strengths, and rely on other people to take up the slack for your weaknesses.
For instance, if you’re terrible with paperwork, there’s no point in punishing yourself by forcing yourself to sit down and wade through it every day. Get a VA or find a colleague who’s naturally better at it to help! Similarly, if you love the nuts and bolts of your work but aren’t great at coming up with big picture plans, then don’t — get a colleague, a mentor, or a coach to help you out.
What are your tips for channeling your best personality traits? Tell us below in the comments!
