Discover Yourself: The Power of Online Personality Assessments

Understanding Your Personality Type Through Online Assessments

Exploring your personality type through online assessments like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) can reveal valuable insights about yourself that help explain your natural tendencies and preferences. These discoveries can empower you to understand yourself more accurately and make positive changes in various aspects of your life—from enhancing personal relationships to improving team dynamics in professional settings.

Continue reading to learn more about personality types, the benefits and limitations of online personality assessments, and how telehealth therapy services can support your journey of personal growth.

Why personality assessments can be valuable tools

Online personality assessments can provide fresh perspectives on your life—helping you identify which personality type best represents your natural tendencies and understand your unique personality traits. These assessments are designed to help you gain deeper self-awareness.

By completing these assessments, you may discover potential strengths, blind spots, and personality characteristics that influence how you navigate the world. This increased self-awareness can serve as a foundation for personal growth, help you understand why you approach different situations in particular ways, and provide insights that allow you to thrive. The descriptions these assessments provide can become starting points for generating ideas for self-improvement or finding more effective ways to communicate your perspective to others.

What personality assessments can tell you

Taking care of your mental wellbeing includes seeking greater self-knowledge. Personality assessments offer insights into your psychological preferences, including how you interpret the world around you and how you make decisions based on your personality profile. Most assessments will ask you to respond to questions describing various scenarios or preferences, resulting in a description that can illuminate your unique traits and tendencies. Many people use these insights to tailor their approach to work and home environments, ultimately helping them achieve a higher quality of life.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), one of the most popular personality assessments, is based on psychological types described by Swiss psychiatrist Carl G. Jung. The underlying theory suggests that although human behaviors appear random, much of this variation follows logical patterns based on differences in how individuals perceive information and make judgments. The MBTI organizes individuals into 16 personality types based on these differences.

Since people differ in how they process information and reach conclusions, it makes sense that they also have different interests, reactions, values, motivations, and skills. One purpose of understanding personality types is to better appreciate these differences between yourself and others. All types are considered equal—there is no “best” type—and your results may offer insights that help you determine suitable career paths or relationship strategies. Personality type assessments sort preferences but don’t measure ability, trait, or character. For these aspects, you might consider other forms of self-exploration or additional assessments.

Research on personality assessments

While there is evidence supporting the reliability of tools like the MBTI, it’s important to approach results with an open mind. If you have deeper questions about your personality or behavior patterns, a licensed mental health professional through ReachLink’s telehealth services can provide guidance through therapy.

Understanding personality types

Personality type is more than just a combination of preferences. The four-letter type formula used in assessments like the MBTI represents the interaction of your mental functions and which ones you prefer to use first. This analysis, called type dynamics, provides deeper insight into your results. Some key points about type dynamics include:

• Your “dominant function” has the greatest influence on your behavior
• The “auxiliary function” is your next strongest preference, supporting and balancing the dominant function
• The “tertiary function” is your third strongest preference
• The “inferior function” is typically your weakest area

Your type may evolve over time and manifest differently in various environments. Throughout life, different preferences may emerge and become more automatic in your behavior patterns.

Understanding assessment results

Many personality assessments categorize traits according to different dimensions. For example, the MBTI uses four dimensions:

1. Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I) – How you interact with others and where you draw energy
2. Sensing (S) or Intuition (N) – How you gather and process information
3. Thinking (T) or Feeling (F) – How you prefer to make decisions
4. Judging (J) or Perceiving (P) – How you organize your world and interact with different environments

Your results are often expressed using letters from these categories, such as INTJ or ESFP, creating a shorthand for your personality preferences across these dimensions.

Where to take personality assessments

You can access free versions of personality assessments using these resources:

• https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test
• https://www.truity.com/test/type-finder-personality-test-new
• https://www.crystalknows.com/jung-myers-and-briggs-personality-test

Making changes after understanding your personality type

After completing a personality assessment, you might feel motivated to make positive changes in your life. Implementing new habits consistently can lead to meaningful transformation. Self-knowledge can contribute significantly to well-being by illuminating ways to encourage behaviors aligned with your natural tendencies.

Meaningful change requires intentionality, effort, and consistent application of new actions or thoughts over time to create lasting habits. If you practice a new thought, attitude, or behavior daily, it typically takes at least three weeks for that activity to become more automatic and comfortable. If you can only practice every other day, expect a minimum of six weeks before the change feels natural.

Working toward your best self

We all have different personalities, needs, and preferences. Yet many of us feel pressure to conform to societal expectations. Try to resist comparing yourself to others, as this comparison can be harmful to your mental wellbeing in the long run.

As you work toward self-acceptance, find activities, hobbies, and habits that bring out your best qualities. Review your current self-care practices and consider what to implement or eliminate. Self-exploration often leads to important realizations about yourself and the world around you.

You can become the person you aspire to be by growing in acceptance of attributes you cannot change. Avoid dwelling on immutable circumstances and focus instead on what you can control. Work on manageable goals to increase success and decrease discouragement. Research shows that radical acceptance can be a beneficial strategy when struggling with aspects of yourself that resist change.

Seeking lasting change with professional support

As you pursue personal growth, you may notice that behaviors you perceive as problematic initially increase in intensity. This happens because intentional focus heightens awareness of patterns you may have been ignoring or minimizing. When you decide to work on any area of your life, you become more conscious of current behaviors and desired changes.

Bringing attention to specific characteristics can illuminate issues you’ve been disregarding. Prepare for potential increases in emotional intensity during this process—you might experience stronger emotional responses as you confront aspects of yourself that were previously unexamined.

If you’re seeking support for this journey, ReachLink’s telehealth therapy services can provide professional guidance. Our licensed mental health professionals can help you process insights from personality assessments, develop strategies for personal growth, and navigate the emotional aspects of change. Through secure video sessions and personalized treatment approaches, ReachLink offers the support you need to transform self-knowledge into meaningful life improvements.

Remember that personal growth is a continuous journey, not a destination. With the right tools and support, understanding your personality type can be a powerful first step toward living more authentically and effectively.