‘Cause you got personality…

…Walk with personality. Talk with personality. Smile with personality. Charm with personality. Love with personality…

Now that this song will be stuck in your head for the rest of the day, I’ll explain why it’s there. My employer decided everyone here should take an online personality test (stick with me, there’s a reason for this “prologue”). To a person, the staff was amazed at how accurate the profiles were. It was downright scary how just a few questions could reveal so much about you. The results helped explained why someone might balk at a new program, why another is always overly interested in everyone’s personal problems, and why others feel they have to fix everything.

My husband took the test, and it was enlightening to see our personalities were like fingers laced together, filling in spaces between each other’s strengths. I’m an introvert and a planner. I like to make lists, check them off, and have everything go as smoothly as possible. I don’t get overly stressed when there is chaos, because I quickly devise a plan to deal with the problems. My husband is spontaneous, gets easily excited, and might break a thing or two if his fix doesn’t work (I’m talking engine parts here, people!). He’s gregarious and outgoing and he makes friends in an instant. The result is, when he suddenly decides to go on a picnic, I’m the one who immediately goes into planning mode, rounding up food, chairs, the dog’s leash, sunscreen, ice, drinks, etc., when he would have just grabbed a pack of hot dogs and headed out. I probably wouldn’t have decided to go on such a trip myself, because in my mind it’s a lot of work. But because he comes up with a fun idea and “makes” me go along, I execute the details (which are actually very simple and fast) and we both have a great time.

The assessments also showed how those same seemingly harmonious traits could put us in conflict—i.e., I think we’ve agreed on a plan but he considers it “a pirate code.” I’m hurt or angry when I find out he changed everything because he came up with a different idea, and it never occurred to him I might have an issue with that. He can’t understand why I make a big deal out of a last-minute trip, but when something goes wrong out in the boonies and I’ve got the exact item needed, he’s shocked.

All of this made me think: These tests are a great way to develop character conflicts. There is enough detail in the tests to develop scenes with conflict between characters, and help you and your reader easily see why the conflict exists or why two very dissimilar people might be attractive to each other.

The test is free (unless you go into the paid sections). I plan to take it again, and answer all the questions the opposite of what I would normally, to see what my alter ego might look like. How about it? Are you ready to discover the REAL you, warts and all?

You can check out the one we took here.