Life Coaching Session One: Myers-Briggs and Temperament

As outlined in my previous post about life coaching, my intention for the following series of “Life coaching” articles is to detail and document the process I am undertaking.  Granted, this is just my experience of it as defined by my particular coach and my own interpretation, so it may not be representative.

Before I actually went to see the coach, I was given the task of completing a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) questionnaire with the view to working out my in-born character preferences.  The questionnaire consisted of 70 multiple-choice questions and they all had to be answered one way or the other.  This system is based on many years of research and stems from the of Carl Jung.  It basically defines 4 pairs of dichotomies, namely:

• Introversion <-> Extroversion
• Sensing <-> iNtuition
• Thinking <-> Feeling
• Judging <-> Perceiving

You can take a look at the wikipedia page I linked to earlier for a more in-depth review of what these types are.  The point that was stressed to me was that, as the theory goes, we each of us are born with certain in-built preferences and they generally do not change over our life time.  We fall at some point along the ranges for each of the four pairs.

The first coaching session involved an explanation of these types and conveyed the idea that while we each fall under one or the other, we can and do lend ourselves onto the other side of the scale, but it’s in these times that stress and frustration can much more quickly arise.

The emboldened letters above are used as short-hand, and based on these and after my questionnaire/self-assessment I came out as a clear ISTJ.  This was by no means a surprise to me, though I felt a little ambiguous with the S<->N as I thought there were more characteristics of the N in my personality than came out in the results of the questions.  That said though I definitely do have a preference for Sensing over iNtuition.

The biggest thing that I can take away from this session is an improvement in my ability to articulate types of people and why certain people and working environments more easily allow me to develop feelings of strain and stress, if exposed to them for extended periods.  I am more conscious of them than before, though I was very aware of the existance of these sorts of characteristics in people before I’d heard about MBTI.

I guess it also makes me more compassionate towards others who are acting out of their in-born preferences, and of course will help me to foresee more readily circumstances that would cause me to become stressed, and thereby offset it or avoid the situation altogether.

Besides MBTI, the first coaching session didn’t really deal with much else except for a mention of my Keirsey temperament, which based on my ISTJ scoring makes me a Gaurdian Inspector.  Those that know me might find that description a little too close to the mark for my liking

My homework for the next session, which is not for another 2 weeks is a Career Anchors Self Assessment questionnaire that is designed to help drive my thinking about what I want out of my career, what my competence areas are, and what most satisfies me.  I’ll know more about this when I’ve done it and will elaborate then.

Not too much to go on just yet, but it’s a beginning.

Related posts:

1. Life Coaching: What is it?
2. Life Coaching Sessions Two and Three
3. Introverts are not shy
4. Infatuation: Flights of fancy
5. The relationship game between men and women, Part 1

Tags: concept, Keirsey, Life Coaching, Myers-Briggs, Personal Development, Personal Growth