Meltem Gizir Sancak
Eğitmen/Profesyonel Koç
Hello All,
As of this issue, we are presenting you a new series of articles that we have prepared with the inspiration from the book “Personality: How to Unleash Your Hidden Strengths” by Dr. Rob Yeung.
We have prepared this series of articles for you to realize your own potential and make the most of it. First of all, we will be discussing the effect of recognizing your own personality on success. And in each of these articles, we will be talking about your journey to recognize your personality by touching on the 7 basic dimensions of personality.
Effect of recognizing personality on success
Why do some people become more successful?
Success begins with knowing who you really are. What are your personal strengths? What are your weaknesses? What kind of skills do you have?
And, how does knowing these things lead a person to success?
People who know themselves are aware of their weaknesses and avoid situations that will reveal these aspects. They are aware of the areas in which they are talented and go in this direction. And instead of going the way everyone else does, they go their own way. These people know very well that their personality is unique and how to take advantage of it.
We all have unique journey of success. Because each of us is unique in a sense. We have individual traits that we call personality. For example, some people can improve themselves under pressure, while others hate it. While some people like to attract attention, others prefer to live in an isolated, cozy way. Some people like harmony, while others enjoy challenge.
So to say, everyone is different, and the ways that each person prefers on the way to success are also different.
In this article series, we will be mentioning about the tests and recommendations taking place in the book by Dr. Rob Yeung. We will be providing you with several methods and recommendations proven to be effective. And we will be talking about 7 basic dimensions of personality.
This journey that we are setting out on with you will allow you to understand your personality, discover your talents and create your own path to success.
Let’s get started.
Making the most of yourself
Dr. Rob Yeung is a psychologist, instructor and author who researches what makes people successful in life, what are the obstacles to this success, why some people get stuck in these obstacles while others achieve success. On an individual basis, he has worked with many people who have displayed success in different professional groups. And he is still helping various companies and institutions to become more efficient and successful.
The result obtained after his studies: It turned out that the most successful people are not always the smartest or the most educated people. Education can carry people only to a certain point. Take a look around, you will see very intelligent people who cannot develop social skills. On the other hand, there are also people around you who do not have a university degree or have not even completed high school education, yet achieved great success. Such people succeed thanks to their determination, curiosity, adaptability and persuasion skills. In other words, what leads them to success is not their personal characteristics, but their personality.
Personality is also at the forefront of teamwork. When team members understand each other’s ways of thinking, what motivates whom, they build better relationships, work more efficiently and trigger each other’s creativity. To see how you can work more effectively with other people, the information you will learn from this series of articles on personality will be very useful to you.
First dimension of personality: Being innovative
To what extent are you innovative?
Let’s start with a quick test with which you can discover your personality and what makes you special. Yes, it’s time to get a pen and paper, read the questions and mark the first thing coming to your mind.
Innovative people are creative, yet, they get distracted quickly because they are wondering what will happen next. So, they may not be able to finish what they started. People who are not innovative keep their feet on the ground and finish what they started, but they are less creative. One is no better than the other. The most successful people combine creativity with functionality, put their ideas into practice.
To what extent are you innovative?
If your answers are ready, let’s get started. Give 2 points each to the statements 1, 2, 4, 6, 9 and 10 that you agree with, and 2 points each to the statements 3, 5, 7 and 8 that you disagree with. As a result, you should have a score between 0-20. If you have a score of 10 or lower, you are not an innovative person. If you have a score of 16 or higher, you are a very innovative person. A score between 12 and 14 indicates that you are a moderately innovative. Do not worry about on your score, though. Good psychologists use personality tests only to make a personality measurement. You can only learn your true identity from people who know you well. In the following sentences, we will write down the characteristics of people who are innovative and who are not. Which one do you feel closer to? Or do you think that you are somewhere in the middle of both? If you received an average score on being innovative. You can read both wings of being innovative and apply what works best for you. For example, if you want to increase your creativity, you can benefit from the recommendations written for people who are not innovative.
Not-Innovative Personality: Realistic and Trustworthy
You are a practical and responsible person. You are often the one who thinks logically in a group. You are more interested in concrete facts than concepts and possibilities. You don’t want to waste your time on imaginary ideas. Instead of discussing the questions, you want to immediately move on to the answers.
Absent-minded people can make you angry. You do not feel any excitement while such people talk about great ideas, you know from experience that most of these ideas cannot be put into practice. What is important for you is whether an idea will work now. If an idea does not turn into a product, tool, or service that you can use immediately, it is not attractive to you. Of course, you do not have the intention to discourage others. You just want to know how these ideas will help you. What are the benefits? How can you use them? How can they be applied?
It’s not your cup of tea to think long and hard about how to do a task better. Instead, you prefer to start working right away, and you often finish what you started. In case of a problem, you use methods that have worked before, and you benefit from your experience. You do not waste time exploring a new method. Why would you reinvent the wheel?
Innovative Personality: Those Thinking outside the Box
You are a curious, imaginative, talented person with the desire to understand how everything works, and who can see the big picture. You’d rather die than stop asking questions. You will be excited while finding new ideas. You will imagine and have pleasure in saying, “How about this?” It drives you crazy that people who ask questions are satisfied with a single answer. You like to think about what might happen in the future.
You have the amazing talent in combining different ideas in an interesting way. You can combine concepts that others consider irrelevant, you can see shapes where they see confusion. Everyone trusts you when it comes to bringing a new perspective to a conversation. You can find new solutions to problems, come up with original ideas. People around you may think that your ideas are a little extreme. Because they don’t even have a quarter of the imagination that you have.
You have a short span of attention. You can easily get bored, the idea of doing one thing for the rest of your life overwhelms you. You have more than one area of interest. You believe there are many beautiful things in the world that you can do and experience. I wish you had time to do them all! Let’s make a table to sum up the characteristics to distinguish the innovative and not-innovative persons:
To sum up…
We cannot say that one side is better than the other in terms of being innovative or not. Innovative people can be creative but can lose reality. People who are not innovative have their feet on the ground, but they might lack imagination. The main goal here is to build a bridge between the creativity of innovative people and the reality of people who are not innovative; in other words the bridge between dreaming and realizing.
We put an end to our article with a few suggestions from Dr. Rob Yeung who will help us build this bridge.
If you received a lower score on being innovative;
- Always keep in mind that something that worked in the past will not always work for you. Hard work alone is not enough to move forward. In a rapidly changing world, both good ideas and hard work are necessary.
- Keep in mind that creativity is a talent that can be nurtured. Take the time to explore the world and try new things. Stimulate your brain to become aware of new things, capture and record these differences.
- Practice occasional brainstorming sessions or try to solve problems that are bigger than the one you are facing. Looking at the big picture or considering ideas that first seemed strange can create turning points in your life.
If you received a higher score on being innovative;
- Remember that one must have a really good reason to reinvent the wheel. You may have to resist your inherent desire to recreate everything. Ask yourself this: “Instead of starting over, is there
something I can use or adapt?” - Realize that innovation requires both exploration (finding new ideas) and processing (bringing ideas to life). You’re excited about the discovery, but you’re not really keen on bringing it to life. You need to be patient about sharing your ideas, repeating the message you want to send, and embracing your ideas. Ideas that are not realized and understood do not mean anything.
- Find the people who succeed on practicing. Stand on each other’s strengths. Focus on the work that requires imagination, leave the practice to others.
