Starting A Small Business - Choose Something That Fits Your Personality Type
If you are thinking about starting a small business it’s extremely important to have some idea of what type of business would fit with your unique talents, skills and personality type.
Because if you are going to spend hours of your time starting a small business, it’s a pretty sure bet that you are really not going to stick with it if you don't like what you are doing.
And when building a solid online or offline business, doing something you enjoy and that fits your unique personality tendencies will make everything a lot easier.
When you are enjoying what you are doing, it’s easier to stay focused and you find yourself in a better state of flow.
That flow is what more easily draws success, customers and recognition to your business, and helps it to flourish.
But if you make your decision on starting a small business based on a business idea that seems easy or inexpensive to start, or that has a lot of money making potential, even though your heart really isn’t in it, you end up facing a lot of resistance to putting in the time and energy involved to make your business succeed, if it ever does.
You are basically swimming against the current instead of flowing with it.
Now I know this may seem idealistic but it’s really common sense. And if you are searching for a small business idea, then why not start out with this frame of mind from the beginning?
You may feel pressured to find a way to make money fast, or choose something because it’s the only thing you can afford, and if that’s a compromise you think you want to make in the short term it’s up to you.
But you will probably find that over the long term it will have ended up a waste of time, and even if the thing you really want to do seems harder or more expensive initially, you’ll find that if you really connect with your true expression things line up in ways you never even imagined possible.
So do you even understand what your personality tendencies are, and how they can help determine the small business that would be right for you?
Well you can start by taking the
What's Your Dream Career Quiz?
for a quick evaluation of how the things you choose to do with your free time indicate what careers might suit you.
But to delve even deeper into discovering your personality tendencies, I’m going to share my experience with the Myers-Briggs Personality Test, and how it helped me and can help you too in determining a good business direction for your personality strengths and inclinations.
I feel the Myers-Briggs test is a very helpful foundation you can use to start determining what kind of business would fit your personality. (I've included a link to the test and other related resources further on in this article)
I had always been a little curious about the Myers-Briggs, I would hear the term periodically and wondered about this test that I knew was the most famous psychological profiling test in the world.
So I took the free online test, and after I was finished the test was immediately scored and I was presented with the results.
And as I read my profile I started to have insights into my personality and behavior that I had never had before.
I just had to know more and so I headed off to the library to borrow every book I could find.
Now the Myers Briggs type is based on 4 different types of preferences: introverted or extroverted, sensing or intuitive, thinking or feeling, and perceiving or judging.
My letters INFJ mean that I express preferences in introversion – I, intuition – N (and N is used instead of another I), feeling – F, and judging – J.
Putting together all the different possibility of preferences gives rise to 16 different personality types.
One prominent Myers-Briggs researcher, David Keirsey has labeled each of these 16 different types with an overall descriptive label:
And he also groups them into four broader categories of Artisans, Idealists, Guardians and Rationalists.
Other researchers use the four categories of Ideal Seeker, Action Seeker, Duty Seeker and Knowledge Seeker.
So how did the Myers-Briggs help me to find the best business idea for my personality tendencies?
As I mentioned above I scored as an INFJ - which is considered the "counselor - idealist".
Now just looking at my category of Idealists, and my specific type which is considered the ”Counselor Idealist”, didn’t seem to really be that illuminating, and looking at the famous people that share my type was pretty daunting.
People such as Ghandi, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr, and Nelson Mandela - very idealistic people indeed!
It was a bit of a relief to also see some lighter personalities that also shared my type such as Billy Crystal, Gary Troudeau of Doonesbury fame, Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul and Mary, Oprah Winfrey and Nicole Kidman, as I really don’t feel quite capable of running out and saving a country or leading a major political protest movement.
But thank goodness there are a lot more options for my personality, and just looking through some of the information about the most popular careers for my type I started to see things I was really interested in that could translate to interesting options for starting a small business.
But what it most helped me with was in finding the right approach or “right place” for me in my research.
It seems that counseling comes naturally to me, and in a round-about way that’s what I’m doing here on this website by sharing business ideas and helpful information to help people start their own business.
I'm also fulfilling some of my idealistic tendencies by encouraging people to think about creating an income stream of their own by building a small business.
The other thing the test helped me to understand was that INFJ’s are more introverted and are well suited to working alone.
They are also usually skilled at writing.
And in my continued research I found that a high number of INFJ’s actually build online businesses.
Being more introverted and prone to writing, it fits our personality to be able to work by ourselves in front of a computer, writing about something we care about.
And it's easier to stay focused on the task at hand and not get distracted.
But if I had scored as an extrovert type, I would have needed to look at things a little differently.
Trying to work all day by yourself if you are an extrovert would probably drive you crazy.
Extroverts need stimulation and input from other people, and you would find yourself popping into chat rooms, making phone calls and really struggling to stay focused on the task at hand.
For an extrovert, a business that works with people or at least has some regular interactions would likely be more successful.
Now if you would have tested as having more artisan tendencies, then you might want to be doing something with your hands. This could be in an arts and craft framework, construction, interior or graphic design, etc.
Or if you would have tendencies in the action seeker category, you might find event planning or some type of business that provided a lot of stimulation and "action" to be a good fit for you.
So these are just some things to consider when looking at your personality tendencies in helping you to choose a small business idea that will suit you.
And you will learn a lot more by taking the test and perusing careers associated with the different Myers-Briggs types.
So just for fun take the test and read the suggested careers, and see if you can pick up some good ideas for businesses you may want to explore.
If you are not familiar with the Myers Briggs test there is a host of online resources for finding out more including the
free Myers-Briggs Online Test
from HumanMetrics.com.
After you receive your testing results go to
MyPersonalityInfo.com
and scroll down to the middle of the page where all 16 different types are listed.
Click on your type and you’ll find a whole page of great information about your personality tendencies, and at the bottom popular careers for your type.
You can also get books at the library like I did.
My two favorite books are “What Type Am I” by Renee Baron – a book that takes a more light approach to the subject, including the use of fun cartoons throughout the book that really help illustrate the points, and “Please Understand Me” by David Keirsey, a lot deeper and more philosophical look at the whole temperament sorting approach and results.
Also remember as with any other type of testing, there is always a margin of error, most of the online tests profess accuracy of 70% or better.
So use the information with a grain of salt, and with an eye towards finding a good fit for your personality tendencies when you are thinking of starting a small business.
