How to Discover What You Should Be Doing: Flow Tests
What is flow?
Flow is the complete immersion into an experience where play is work and work is play.
You flow, where thoughts and actions merge smoothly and there are no mental distractions or barriers to progress.
You are challenged and engaged, and when your experience triumphs, you seek more challenges in this arena, stay engaged, conquer and then look for the next challenge.
Your interests and skills align perfectly with the activity and time flys by! 10 hours feels like 10 minutes. You are much more likely to be successful in anything you do if it promotes the flow state within you on a regular basis.
What is your personality, and how do you naturally interact with others?
If you don’t know try:
Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
One of the most popular personality tests is from one of the founding fathers of modern psychology, Carl Jung.
Carl Jung founded the theories and principle for which this test was based on back in 1921 and it is still used today.
Katharine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myer, converted Jung’s theories into the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, also known as MBTI.
The results of this test can be 1 of 16 personality types based on:
- Where you find your energy and how you recover (extraversion vs. introversion).
- Your preference on gathering information (intuition vs. sensing).
- Process you use to make your decisions (feeling vs. thinking).
- How your decisions are structured (judging vs. perceiving).
This test will generally help you understand where you get your energy from/how you recover, and how you think and make decisions.
If you are an introvert then you get your energy away from others, however if you are an extrovert you get your energy from being around other people.
I used it and I found it very helpful in my Career pursuits and entrepreneurship.
So what does this test cost?
There are many institutions and websites that offer this at a cost, but lucky for you, you can take this test for free at this wonderful website I found at:
http://www.16personalities.com/
The key takeaway from this test is getting sense if you prefer to be productive solo (introvert) or with others (extrovert). Also understanding how you think can help you better understand what types of project you might want to create or assist with.
What are your natural skills and abilities?
If you don’t know use try:
Strengths Finder
This was originally developed by the father of strengths psychology, Donald Clifton.
The core purpose of this test is to find people’s natural strengths. Of course people also have natural weaknesses, but this system is designed to find your strengths and build upon them instead of finding your weaknesses and improving those.
As Tom Rath said “We were tired of living in a world that revolved around fixing our weaknesses [and …] we had discovered that people have several times more potential for growth when they invest energy in developing their strengths instead of correcting their deficiencies.”
This identifies 34 core strengths in 4 areas, which are: Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building, and Strategic Thinking.
This test does cost money, however I highly recommend it and believe the low price of $15 is well worth it.
My strengths are:
Ideation, Relator, Achiever, Connectedness, and Individualization. What I saw at first shocked me, since I was expecting different core strengths to pop up.
After I read the descriptions and pondered on them longer while reliving past experiences, I found these to be quite accurate.
StrengthsFinder 2.0
How do you naturally solve problems?
Kolbe A Index Test
This test focuses conative strengths, which are your natural creative instincts on how you solve problems and arrive at a solution. Different people solve problems differently and not knowing this can cause problems in a team environment. This helps people and businesses understand how to better form teams.
This test focuses on four dimensions which are:
For me my highest score was by far in the “Quick Start” category, which refers to your ability to take risk.
For me I scored very high in this category, which means I have an instinct to take action quickly when it comes to solving problems.
I felt this test was accurate in analyzing my problem solving style.
This test costs around 50 dollars to take. I feel any test that can give you a better understanding of yourself is truly worth it and I hope you take this life changing test.
You can take this test at:
http://www.kolbe.com/
Knowing what your personality type, strengths, as well as your problem solving style is it may help you decide how you would like to reinvent yourself and your career path.
For instance…if you turned out to have:
Personality: Perceptive Introvert
Strengths: Discipline, Self Assurance, Adaptability, and Strategic
Problem Solving Style: High Quick Start (high adversity to risk)
With these attributes, someone might be better suited to be a freelancer, as opposed to a project manager or even a team lead within their organization.
Some of us may have just one of these or none of these career areas handled. That’s OK! Many don’t. These are easy to learn and you can have it much faster than you might believe.
Do you have a career management plan? Do you prefer to be a freelancer or entrepreneurial business owner? Either way it is important to learn the road map of success.
Would you prefer to learn how to:
Go from hourly to a salary job?
Go from a private sector to federal government job?
Transition from a corporate to freelance position?
Start a business that works for you?
Just let us know and we will help!
Click Here To Get Your Free Roadmap and Go From Cubicle to Boss
The post Find Out What Career You Are Best Suited For: Find Your Flow State appeared first on Cubicle Boss.
