Discover Your Income Earning Potential

The Power of Personality Profile Analysis;

​Like it or not, our ability to successfully live an alternative lifestyle, not bound by the "9-5", hinges on our ability to fund ourselves.

The big question though, is HOW.

This is what I have learned so far...​  

Personality is Key;

​In particular, tapping into it.

I have been investigating the concept of personality profiling as a means to develop the best fit for income producing work.  I figure it's probably about time I work out what I'm good at and what may 'art' is.

I mean, I'm going to be living the way I want to live, so why not find a way to earn money doing what I want to do?  

Bob found a great blog that pretty much covers all the areas I need to unlock my 'skills' set, find out what it is that 'floats my boat' and set the ball in motion.  I strongly recommend you take a look at (and follow) unsettle.org.  The author, Sarah Peterson, writes great articles that are very helpful; in particular, the start here article which for me, has already changed the way I feel about, and look at myself.

Some background on me;

I have always been a bit of a drifter.  I just can't quite put my finger on what I want to do 'when I grow up'.  I have tried my hand at many things but just never really seem to find my 'niche'.  

In an attempt to ‘do better’ I went to Uni, as a mature age student (twice), in an attempt to explore my ‘perceived’ career goals and get a profession; which is what I thought I needed to do to get a sense of satisfaction in life, but inevitably I fell short of finishing. I was beginning to think I was a bit of a failure (I am very self critical).

Until I started investigating my personality type.

It was somewhat of a revelation, and confronting, to read in black and white, statements about my personality; most of which rang surprisingly true.  Things that made me realise that I am not a failure; I have just been looking at things the wrong way.

Somehow, I feel that I have always known these (newly revealed) 'things' about myself, but was unable to reconcile the inner truths with what I believed society required of me to be a good citizen and live within the expected norms. You know, House, kids, cars, debt….

So, I feel discovering who you are through personality profiling is empowering and can set you on the path to success (whatever that means for you).

Profiling;

What makes you tick?

Working through the pages of unsettle.org ​I came across a great online profiling tool that is easy to use and only takes about 12 minutes to complete.  

You are then presented with a comprehensive profile of your personality type which you can work with to find that dream job or develop areas of your life that you are not entirely happy with.  

If you want to subscribe for a small fee you can get the mega awesome expanded explanation of your personality.  But for me the free option is working just fine :).

So, I performed the test 7 times, over about 12 days; then took the most common response, just to make sure the results were as accurate as possible.  I don't want to be misleading myself by working on an incorrect personality assumption.

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The results please.....

5/7 (or 71%) of the tests resulted in the same response (the two others were within the same profile group). Pretty accurate I think.

Apparently my personality type is an INFP-T 'mediator' located within the diplomat profile group and my best career option is.....writer!...

...and the crowd goes wild!!

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I'm going to let you in on a secret...

        ...I have always wanted to be a writer (or a singer/entertainer :0).  

​I wrote a children's book when I was in grade 6.  It was pretty good and I was asked to read it to all the kids in years 1-4.  I was really proud of that book.  But I never thought about getting it published.  It just never occurred to me.  Since then, I have started about 11 novels but I never seem to get past the first chapter.

Novels are hard to write!! :) Who knew.  LOL.

I have  contemplated writing a book that is a compilation of all the books I started...I would call it 'In the beginning', because all it would consist of is book beginnings.

​haha.

But, these days we have the Internet and blogging.  So it is the perfect medium for me. Short and sweet. :)

Attention Please;

The thing with personality profiling is that it can help you focus.  If you are at all like me you will have had a truck load of jobs, some of which you loved, most of which you just did because you had to pay the bills.  

The trick is to work out why you loved those awesome jobs and why you didn't love the rest.

When you profile your personality you unpack your psychological paradigm, revealing both your good and bad character traits; your temperament.  This allows you to identify the areas that you possibly need to work on as well as the areas that you excel at.  

You will come to realise why one job was amazing and why another was almost unbearable.  This knowledge is power.

When you know how you tick and what it is that drives you you can become unstoppable.

Sometimes it is simply having an outside source confirming what we know but are reluctant to acknowledge about ourselves.  (such modest folk that we are, right?)

I for one, find it really hard to admit my good points, if I do, it is usually in a joking manner, like “wow I varnished the window; yeah I’m awesome, I totally rock”, and very tongue in cheek.  But deep down, I really want people to know and see, without me telling them, that I rock at varnishing windows.   :D  

Identify Your Strengths;

Here is something else that I have learned in life; your biggest assets are often the very things that people say are your weaknesses.  ??  WHAT!! ?? you ask, scratching your head.  

Let me explain...

When I was working as a vocational trainer (a job I was totally in-love with) I went to a seminar on turning your weaknesses into your strengths, or as David Rendall puts it; exploiting your 'Freak Factor'.   I thought the worksheet would be a great tool for the youth I was working with, as it turned out, it was.  

At the seminar we were told the story of how David was always being reprimanded in school for talking too much; they even told him he would never amount to anything; not the most encouraging Teacher (had my share of those too).  However, by taking an alternative view of his so called weakness, David was able to turn his 'weakness' around and use it as a personal strength.  He, chose to let his 'weakness' guide him, he looked at what he could do with his 'Freak Factor' and realized it was a talent of conversation.  Now he makes his living as a motivational speaker and author.  

SO, the point of that little digression is that you will often find your strongest skills hiding in plain sight.

The key to getting people to see how great you are and that you truly rock is consolidation.  By this I mean, focusing your attention on the things you rock at.

Personality profiling can help you do this.

So, rather than floating around being kinda good at a whole bunch of stuff, but not being satisfied, and not getting the recognition you deserve, you can use the information gathered by your profile analysis to guide you down a focused pathway to success.

Of course, this pathway may be totally unfamiliar to you.  It may be based on a dream or idea that has been gathering dust in the locked vault of your subconscious mind since you were 11, and subsequently your relevant skills set may not be up to par for an overnight success story.  But, what you have is a goal.  A target to work towards and a pathway that is clear and brightly lit.

So, jump on-line, go visit unsettle.org and get yourself started.  You won't regret it. :)

Until next time, 

Robyn :)