The Most Telltale Sign Of Type

This article may make me sound a bit mean, or harsh, or negative… or something. (I’m not really sure where all it’s going to end up going.) However, I periodically get it in my head to share a thought process or perspective in relation to typology. That’s what this is: another perspective. This will probably be akin to another one of my rambling posts that have yet to make it into their own category. Anyways, what I intend to talk about in this article is weaknesses.

People don’t like to think about their weaknesses. No one does. We like to focus on our strengths. We naturally want to see ourselves as better than we are. That’s probably why all of the romanticized personality type descriptions exist: they’re what people want to read. They’re how people want to view themselves. Frequently, when people want to be typed, they arm themselves with a list of strengths and try to match that to their best fit type, or their desired type. (Of course, if they get the type that they want, they wear it like a badge of honor.)

Personally, I’ve found that it’s far easier to type people (and myself) from their weaknesses. By weaknesses, I’m not just talking about those weaknesses that people readily admit to because they actually view them with a degree of pride. I mean their real weaknesses too. The weaknesses that they hate to hear someone else point out.

I can be a very critical person, not gonna lie. I’ve always naturally noticed people’s flaws. It’s how I perceive dishonesty. If a person doesn’t demonstrate any flaws, then you can’t foresee how they’re going to fail you or conflict with you. Without any apparent flaws, they aren’t being “real” …but I digress. I essentially use flaws as a means to perceive someone’s true nature, and understand who they are. That principle can actually apply to personality theory quite well, and I’ll share some reasons why.

1. It’s easy to fake strengths.

People can prepare for difficult scenarios, avoid stressors, and just generally find ways to cover for their weakness, sometimes making them appear to have strengths that they don’t really have. This is actually related to why older people, or truly mature individuals can be very difficult to type. Usually with age and maturity, comes either a development of your weaknesses (so that they’re less weak) or at least the ability to account (or cover) for them in a positive way. As mentioned, these people can be exceedingly hard to type because there are no glaring holes in their personality.

2. Lists of strengths attributed to each type can also be far too general.

For instance, certain types have been tagged as insightful… but insightful how? Insightful in what scenarios? It’s like the word “intuitive”. Classical intuition is often described as a more feeling centered attribute, rather than intuition in the way that MBTI wants to describe it. So, people end up on these lists of strengths, and with the exception of some that may be drastically opposite of their nature, it’s not difficult to relate to the strengths for multiple personality types. It’s also easy to trick yourself into thinking you have a strength that you don’t really have, because our own perspective of ourselves tends to be… inflated.

3. Weaknesses as a whole can be far more telling.

If everyone emailing in to Ryan and I asking to be typed just gave a detailed explanation of their weaknesses and stressors, they’d probably be infinitely quicker to type. Why? Because weaknesses are what they are. They’re the missing pieces of information. We’re not going to hide our strengths. We’re going to hide our weaknesses. I believe one of the biggest roadblocks that people face when determining their own type is a failure to recognize and accept their own weaknesses. The problem is that we don’t want to think about them. And, when someone accuses us of a weakness, we want to find a way to deny it’s reality. We want to claim that the accuser is somehow misunderstanding, reading the situation wrong, or just plain mean. We want to explain them away in some manner that downplays the cold, hard truth. …I was just tired, or not really myself that day, right?

In conclusion…

Do you really want to discover your personality type and use it as a tool for growth? Actually look inside yourself with a willingness to accept whatever you find. Pay attention to the scenarios in which you conflict with others. What provoked the conflict each time? Was it a failure to explain yourself well? Was it too many assumptions or an incorrect assumption? Was it emotional sensitivity? Was it emotional manipulation? Was it a failure to listen? An overly harsh statement? Etcetera.

Ask the people closest to you what your weaknesses really are, and brace yourself for the answer. If they’re being honest, they’ll probably produce some answers that you didn’t expect. However, if you have a reputation for freaking out when someone tells you something that you don’t want to hear, don’t be surprised if no one is willing to answer that question honestly. I personally gauge people before answering certain questions. If I know my answer won’t be taken well (based on experience and knowledge of the person), I usually duck, dodge, and weave. Emotional drama is a pain to be involved in, and once it starts, I’m probably just going to end up digging myself deeper and deeper into a hole, so to speak. So, if you can’t derive any legitimate weaknesses from their answers, maybe that’s telling in and of itself.