How Your Personality Influences Every Moment of Your Life

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Your personality influences everything about your life – often in ways that you may not even notice or appreciate. When you learn how to leverage your personality, you can live more intentionally with purpose and passion as God’s beloved.

Your personality influences…

• What world do you live in (not just literal Earth!)
• How you literally see the world you’re in
• How you make decisions
• Whether you prefer freedom or organization in your world (not just how you organize your closet!)

In short, whether you like your personality or not – it’s part of YOU. You can choose to make the most of your natural tendencies or try to push against them. It’s up to you.

Curious to learn more?

Let’s break it down.

How do you define personality?

According to dictionary.com:

Personality – the combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual’s distinctive character.

Dictonary.com

Your personality can also be called your nature, disposition, temperament, persona, psyche or identity.

It’s a modge podge of different qualities that make up YOU.

Different Perspectives: A Coffee Shop Example

Meet Maggie and Amy – two friends who have a standing coffee date to catch up on each other’s lives. One day, while they’re waiting for their coffee, they gaze at a local photographer’s artwork (see below).

Before scrolling further, take a moment to consider what YOU see when you look at the picture.

• When Maggie saw the picture, she wondered what were the different flavors and types of coffee on the table, how the coffee was made (especially the fancy latte!), and who was going to drink all the coffee.

• As Amy gazed at the picture, she pondered about the people behind the beverages – what brought them together, what made them choose the different types of brews, and if it was going to be a long leisurely discussion.

Which perspective did you most resonate with? Did the other response surprise you? Or did you have a completely different take?

In our story, both women are looking at the same picture but with different perspectives.

In fact, their unique personalities are influencing how they see and experience the picture. It’s the same for you, too!

Let’s pick one personality model to work with: Myers Briggs Typology Indicator®(MBTI®)

For the purposes of this post (and the majority of personality content at Coffee Chats and Yoga Mats), I’ll be using the Myers Briggs Typology Indicator®(MBTI®).

As a certified MBTI® consultant, I’m passionate about leveraging this model to live intentionally with passion and purpose as God’s beloved.

The MBTI® focuses on how you engage in the world, including what energizes you, how you take in information, how you make decisions, and how you choose to take action.

What world do you live in? i.e. introversion and extroversion

You’ve probably heard A LOT about introversion and extroversion in your day-to-day life.

It’s not uncommon to hear comments like this:

• Sometimes I’m really extroverted and sometimes I kind of just want to stay home.
• Oh – she’s so extroverted! Look at how she talks with everyone?
• He’s shy, you know – introverted.

Contrary to popular belief, having introverted preferences doesn’t mean you’re inherently shy or don’t like being around people.

Neither does it mean that those with extroverted preferences are outgoing or the life of the party.

Honestly, that’s a really limiting perspective on these two types of people!

Rather, introversion and extroversion refer to which world you tend to gravitate toward: the inner world (introversion) or the outer world (extroversion).

For Introverts, the inner world (the world inside of themselves) is the “real world,” the world that really matters.

For Extraverts, the external world (the world outside of themselves) is the real world.

It is this inner or outer reality from which a host of behaviors emerge.

Personality Hacker: Harness the power of your personality type to transform your work, relationships and life, By Joel Mark Witt and Antonia Dodge (page 20)

Introverts tend to check in with themselves first before speaking or taking action (Does this resonate internally?).

Extraverts tend to speak or act first (Putting it outside of themselves will help clarify what’s true!).

Heya extroverts and introverts, here's what makes you special

Hopefully, this gives you an idea of the sheer complexity of introversion and extroversion!

How do you see the world? i.e. sensing and intuition

The next key piece of the MBTI® framework is sensing and intuition.

In my opinion, it’s one of the most misunderstood and under-appreciated.

If you have sensing preferences, you pay more attention to what you can observe through your five senses. What am I seeing? Hearing? Tasting? touching? Smelling?

• You’re more apt to remember events as they actually happened, prefer to solve problems by working through facts first, dwell in details prior to forming a big picture, and trust your experience first.
• You may be more apt to see the trees than the forest.

If you have intuitive preferences, you tend to see patterns and possibilities through the information you’re taking in. It’s less concrete and more abstract.

• You’re more apt to remember events by the meaning of the events, prefer to solve problems by exploring ideas, focus on the big picture and then dig into the facts, and trust ideas before your actual experience.
• You may be more apt to see the forest than the trees.

This is just a snapshot of what it’s like to lead with sensing and intuitive preferences!

How do you make decisions? i.e. thinking and feeling

The next MBTI® element is often framed from a gendered perspective – thinking and feeling. (This drives me bonkers!!)

• Men are so logical. You can only connect with them through facts!
• Women are so emotional. They only make decisions based on their feelings.

This is so limiting!!

Not all men approach decision-making from a primarily logic-based perspective. Not all women make decisions based on their concerns for others.

(We’re not even getting into the ridiculous idea that thinkers can’t feel and feelers can’t think. Perhaps another time.)

With that tangent aside, let’s focus on the basics of thinking and feeling.

If you have thinking preferences, you tend to make decisions based on the basic truth or principle to be applied, regardless of the specific situation involved. You like to:

• Make decisions with your head and want to be fair
• Analyze circumstances using pros and cons
• Prioritize telling the truth over being tactful
• Strive to be impersonal in making decisions

If you have feeling preferences, you tend to make decisions using personal, human-based considerations. You consider the impact on people first. You like to:

• Make decisions using your heart and want to be compassionate
• Weigh what people care about and consider various points of view involved in a situation
• Be tactful over telling the “cold” truth
• Strive to establish or maintain harmony

Do you want freedom or organization? i.e. judging and perceiving

The final piece of the MBTI® personality framework is judging and perceiving.

It’s easy to just assume that “Oh, if you’re a judger, you’re a stickler for organization and if you’re a perceiver, you’re all over the place.”

Again, there’s so much more to this story!

Rather, if you lead with judging preferences, you tend to organize your outer world to allow inner-world freedom. Having an organized external world helps you better process what’s going on in your head and heart.

For instance, as a judger, you may think better when your office space is carefully organized and thrive more with a meticulously crafted schedule.

If you lead with perceiving preferences, you tend to have a highly organized internal world of thoughts and feelings. Since you have such an organized mind, you don’t necessarily find it as important to organize your external world.

For example, as a perceiver, you may find more creativity in an office that isn’t carefully organized and thrive with lots of spontaneity and unplanned time in your schedule.

Are you more spontaneous or more of a planner? (do you know how that also makes you lovable?)

Obviously, we could unpack this much more, but this is just a snapshot of what judging and perceiving preferences look like.

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Wrapping up how your personality influences every moment of your life

As you can see, your personality influences every aspect of your life, including:

• What world do you live in? i.e. introversion and extroversion
• How do you see the world? i.e. sensing and intuition
• How do you make decisions? i.e. thinking and feeling
• Do you want freedom or organization? i.e. judging and perceiving

Your personality preferences, while perhaps frustrating at times, equip you for your life.

You can choose to ignore your personality (I’m so broken!) and limit yourself from living a life full of purpose and passion as God’s beloved.

Or you can choose to leverage your personality (I’ve got something unique to offer!) and thrive in a life full of purpose and passion as God’s beloved.

The more you learn how to leverage your strengths, the more you can make the kind of impact you long for.

Who doesn’t want that?

My challenge for you is to take the MBTI® assessment if you haven’t already. If you have taken it, read more about your type and ask yourself how you can leverage your personality MORE in your daily life.

You can live intentionally with passion and purpose as God’s beloved. Take a small step by learning more about the person God designed you to be.

P.S. Want some crazy simple steps to start living intentionally? Grab the Embrace Your Potential Playbook. It’ll help you zoom in on your God-gifted personality and give you practical tips to be more intentional, passionate, and purposeful as God’s beloved so you can become the best version of yourself.