I Tried Jordan Peterson’s Self-Assessment to Understand My Career Trajectory
By: Alice Greschkow
Tags: Self Improvement, Self, Success, Careers, Psychology

Why are some people successful — and others in spite of brains, talent and a pleasant character seem to struggle with their careers?

This question has puzzled me for a while and I wanted to find answers. There have been many gurus and approaches who tried to explain the determining factor for success. Grit, passion, discipline, practice — books have been written on these topics, but they never seemed to explain what I observed.

I knew people who were highly successful after changing sectors — so they lacked practice and insights in their new field. I know people who make a lot of money — but secretly loathe their job — so it can’t be passion.

Psychometrics indicate how you will (probably) perform

Digging into the research, I found correlations between IQ and income. But what caught my attention was the field of psychometrics — the scientific attempt to measure personality. As you can imagine, measuring such a complex and dynamic subject as a personality can be incredibly tricky. Often, the results can be misleading.

When measuring personality, researchers give you a questionnaire with items on your typical behaviors. You read statements and have to click on the scale of agreement. In recent years, the Myers-Briggs test, which has been converted to 16personalities.com became widely popular. Again, you fill out a questionnaire and receive a personality description — people are categorized into 16 personalities based on the factors of extraversion — introversion, sensing — intuition, thinking — feeling and judgement — perception.

The test is quirky and fun — and relatively accurate (FYI: I’m the “campaigner”). However, there seems to be a lot of criticism on that model, as you can see in the following video:

Therefore, I searched for another method and came across the Big 5 — a personality model based on the factors of extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism and openness. The model seems to be the most accurate when it comes to finding accurate correlations.

The controversial Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan B. Peterson has conducted a fair amount of research on the topic and offers a detailed test online. Peterson has become a public figure with various groups taking offense in his statements about gender and identity — but for the matter of this article, I’ll leave this battle out.

Be honest to yourself

While I initially tried to understand the success of others, my perspective changed to understanding myself. This is crucial as in the case of your very own career, it is easy to try to copy the success stories of others or blame management for lack of prosperity, when the truth often lies in yourself. You cannot copy another person, because you are yourself — your individual path to success depends on your own personality and approach towards the world.

On understandmyself.com you can take the personality assessment for 10 Dollars to receive quite a detailed description of how you function. The great advantage is that it is accessible and comprehensible — you don’t need a psychology degree to understand the test or the results. They are tangible.

After taking the test, you will receive insights of the Big 5 and two sub-aspects:

Agreeableness includes Compassion and Politeness

Conscientiousness includes Industriousness and Orderliness

Extraversion includes Enthusiasm and Assertiveness

Neuroticism includes Withdrawal and Volatility

Openness to Experience includes Intellect and Openness

My results weren’t surprising — except for a few details that matter.

I scored very high on the openness to experience scale.

My industriousness was high too, but I only scored low on orderliness, which does not make me exceptionally industrious. And it is true — orderliness in this sense is connected to creating order and routines, while I’ve always enjoyed loose schedules and spontaneity. While women on average score higher in orderliness than men — that is not the case with me.

So what do such results tell you about your career?

They indicate what might fit better for you. You can train yourself to balance out some of the shortcomings of each trait — but it requires a lot of effort and forcing your change into drastic change might not be worth it if it is against your nature.

Based on these results, I will never become the CEO of a corporation. That’s fine for me. However, I can be mindful about my deficits and push myself to create more stability. I formulated a clear goal to manage my schedule better with slots which are dedicated to work, private life and me-time. It’s a baby step, but changes don’t come overnight.

However, with high scores un extraversion and very high scores in openness to experience, I should cater to those traits and use them beneficially. As it fits my personality, I regularly try to meet new inspiring people for a coffee — this brings me novelty and feeds into the extraversion. Additionally, I make it a habit to be creative — this means to establish a writing routine (and become more orderly by it) to satisfy the need to stimulate my mind and learn more. Many writers — regardless if professional or not — will understand the urge to write and the effect if you withdraw from it. It’s not good.

Stop copying others!

Such self-assessments are made for people who are genuinely interested in their self-growth. You won’t like every result — but you shouldn’t be offended by your own personality. Every trait comes with benefits and challenges. Jordan Peterson often says:

“Pick your sacrifice!”

If you are mindful about your skills and shortcomings, it will be easier to navigate through your life. My main interest lies in my professional development when I assess myself, but I know that my traits affect every other aspect of my life — family, relationships, hobbies.

While the internet is full of success advice and obsessive analysis of high achievers, you might want to adapt some tactics — but you cannot adopt an entire personality. You might not become the most successful or richest person — but it’s good enough to own the path that is made for you. Stop copying others and walk the extra mile in finding what genuinely fits you. Good luck!