There are so many important things.
In a world where everything is screaming it is important, realistically, maybe 20% of it is…
So how do you decide what is important (to you)?
It’s all about self-knowledge (this really is the answer to almost every question.)
There are so many tests out there – personally and professionally. Professionally: MBTI, DISC, Clifton Strengths, Value Indicator, Core Finders, VIA, etc. Then there are all the free versions of these tests. And then there are the multiple iterations of these tests – where someone decided to put a different spin on it.
Same thing on the personal side, the quizzes, the tests that tell you “where you are” in accordance to some scale.
At Inspired Operations, we do not (because we cannot) separate the personal from the professional. The professional tests can be just as telling personally depending on how it is administered and its focus. Deeper digging and reflection can pull out the underlying values and ideas within a person’s life.
That’s how I suggest you start. Looking for the personal within those professional tests that you’ve already taken. It’s about those personal values. And how those translate into a “professional environment.”
For example, my top value is autonomy. And since it is my essential value, it rises to the top in both my personal and professional testing. Sometimes it is called choice, independence or the ever present flexibility. It is the throughline of my entire life. I would choose it over all the other things.
However, I did not notice it at all until I started sorting through all those tests. They all seemed to say something different, that I was a different person. I was and I could be. But I knew there was a core of me so I sorted through everything looking for throughlines.
My second value is solitude and silence. Yes, I’m that person sitting in the corner, with noise cancelling headphones on to try to get silence. Or telling you that I have no interaction after 7pm rule.
In this instance, I knew this preference existed and thought it was a personal thing. I could never bring it to work. So I thought. And for my whole life, I struggled so much when I knew, I just knew, that I could get 3-5X more work done when I’m behind a closed door with silence all around me.
Now I don’t force myself to do certain work in certain situations. I know I’ll have a quiet hour at home when I can knock out 6 things in the time it would take me to do 2 of them in the office.
Here’s a glance at some of my professional tests:
Clifton Strengths: Achiever, Responsibility
DISC: Examiner
Multidimensional Career: Choice, Competence
Life Values Inventory: Independence
MBTI: INFJ (Sometimes INTJ, sometimes INTP, sometimes INFP)
Achiever, Choice and Independence definitely match my need for autonomy. Solitude and silence AND autonomy are the two things that let me actually do all the things that these professional tests say that I’m focused on. (And yes, solitude and silence is one word for me. One without the other is nice but not the same. It must be both.)
In looking at these professional tests, it is, really, not so surprising to see how my answers changed depending on the job or company I was in at the time. Which is why my MBTI changed from job to job depending on what I needed to do to fulfill the role at the company. I know I’m not alone.
Taking tests within the job sphere is always going to color those outcomes. It is almost better to take these tests when you are relaxed and away from the job to get to the core of the matter. Since that likely isn’t happening any time soon, if you can do your best to remove yourself from the situation in your mind, you will get a better understanding of your true self, with or without the job.
Granted the job wants to test the “job you”. But wherever you go there you are. So you can see what YOU really need to do any job and for that matter what you need to support your life. When you figure out what is most important, what you really need in any job or situation, the rest of those things are easier to put in their appropriate place.
So what really matters? For me, it’s my two personal values that help support, sustain and give fire to my profession. That’s how I do my job and actualize myself how I want to be.
What is most important?
Even in professional work, it is likely more personal than you’ve been led to believe.
