September is here and you may be thinking of going back to school or learning some new skills outside the classroom. When learning, people prefer to take in and evaluate information their own way. Understanding your personal learning preferences will help make your learning more effective.

This blog explores your personality type preferences for taking in information and making decisions. When given information, some people prefer to focus first on the factual, practical, content (Sensing) while others tend to focus first on ideas and links between pieces of information (INtuition). When evaluating information and giving/receiving feedback, some learners prefer a logical analytical approach (Thinking), while others prefer a more personal, subjective approach (Feeling). Everyone uses Sensing, iNtuition, Thinking, and Feeling when learning, but learning is usually easier and less tiring when we can focus primarily on our preferred approach.

Here are some learning tips and strategies based on personality type preferences to help you maximize your learning.

If you have preferences for Sensing and Thinking (ST)

You are likely a sensible and pragmatic learner looking for logical and practical reasons for learning. Find practical, relevant, factual information that is organized in a logical, step-by-step manner. Focus on learning specific facts and then applying those facts competently to practical situations. If you are learning from someone else, look for an instructor who is competent, experienced, and objective. Ask for real examples and opportunities for hands-on practice. Question and critique, this will help you understand and clarify the information. You likely want clear, corrective feedback and may be impatient with small talk or group work that doesn’t have an obvious connection to what you need to learn.

At times, you may need to learn about theories or models that seem irrelevant. In these cases, link the ideas to what you know from your experiences. Relate ambiguous, subjective or abstract information logically to your current situation and realities. There may be times when you can’t memorize all the required content. In these cases, find and memorize the general ideas and patterns behind the facts. You may critique and judge teachers quickly. Try to learn something from everyone. Practice using diplomacy when questioning and critiquing; if you don’t others may personalize or misunderstand your comments.

If you have preferences for Sensing and Feeling (SF)

You are likely a down-to-earth and amiable learner who seeks practical information to make things better for yourself and others. You want to learn personally relevant facts that are presented in a clear, step-by-step manner. Memorize specific facts and then find ways to use what you are learning to meet people’s needs. Opportunities to practice, real life stories, and personal examples help you apply what you are learning. Find a supportive teacher or coach who takes a personal interest in your learning. If you are learning outside of the classroom, find a friend or colleague who supports and encourages your learning. You seek positive feedback and want corrective feedback to be given gently. Try to avoid learning situations where teachers or classmates are overly competitive, impersonal, or critical.

When you need to learn about theories and models, link the ideas to your personal experiences and think of ways to apply the ideas to your current situation. When there is a lot of information to retain, look for categories and patterns. Use these categories and patterns to help you remember what you need to know. There will be times when you will be in a learning environment that is not highly supportive. Be open to accepting frank, corrective feedback. Corrective feedback and logical analysis can be powerful learning tools to help you identify errors and clarify information.

If you have preferences for iNtuition and Thinking (NT)

You likely are a self-reliant, independent learner who evaluates and integrates concepts in an objective, logical manner. Focus on learning complex theoretical information that you can use to link ideas and concepts to broad applications and strategies. You will be convinced by information from objective, accurate, credible sources and by instructors who are competent subject area experts. Debate, question, and critique what is known to clarify and develop ideas. Seek well-thought-out, discerning, corrective feedback.

At times you will need to focus on and logically order relevant facts, concrete details, practical steps, and current realities. Attending to these realities will be necessary to ground theories and help you find realistic applications for learning. Use diplomacy when questioning and critiquing, since others may personalize or misunderstand your comments. Accept and learn from positive feedback rather than minimizing its importance. Don’t judge your teachers too quickly; you can learn something from everyone.

If you have preferences for iNtuition and Feeling (NF)

You likely are a collaborative and cooperative learner who integrates and understands concepts within the context of your personal values. Linking ideas and concepts to possibilities for developing yourself or others is often a motivation for learning. You like to learn collaboratively and want others to encourage you to share and integrate ideas and concepts in a supportive environment. You like to learn about alternative perspectives, show empathy, and find common ground. Authentic encouragement and positive feedback help you learn.

At times you may benefit from focusing on and evaluating the relative importance of specific facts, details and practical steps. Attending to current realities will ground your theories and ideas and help you understand a situation more thoroughly. Learn to appreciate and use objective facts and logical analysis when learning. For example, analyzing differences between alternative perspectives and agreeing to disagree at times can facilitate learning. You may need to learn to view corrective feedback objectively and focus on learning from it rather than personalizing it.

No matter what your personality type preferences are, it is always a good idea to engage your senses when learning. I took this picture while we were on a trip through the Alberta, Canada, Rocky Mountains this summer. How elk use their senses to learn about and adapt to their environment is a good analogy for human learning. When only one sense is engaged, an elk becomes alert, but doesn’t act. The elk responds when more than one sense is activated and the situation is fully understood. For example, if an elk sees you it will be interested but not concerned, and then try to smell you, wanting to confirm with its nose what it perceives with its eyes. I think the same is true for humans. If you engage multiple senses when learning, information will be confirmed and more easily remembered.

Information adapted from Introduction to Type® and Learning

At the end of the week, it’s time to reflect. Here are the top three items that caught my attention on the net.

I liked the Ms. Career Girl site. The site is interesting and dynamic with lots of ideas for career development. This site might be most attractive to the 20ish crowd, although the information is valuable for anyone.

Finding the blog by Steven Aitchison, 100 Ways to Develop Your Mind, is my second highlight of the week. This blog provides a good reminder for me of the importance of continuing to learn and use your thinking skills.

I also think Networking Made Easy for Introverts by Kate Lorenz is helpful.

Here is a bonus highlight for the week. Although this site isn’t new to me, I wanted to mention the O*NET. I don’t know of any other site that has such extensive information on occupations as this one does and I urge those in career transition/job search mode to go there and look around.

For my humorous note, Unsuck It is a hoot. Put in your least favorite work jargon and see what you get.

I plan to share three highlights from my exploration every Friday. To illustrate this weekly blog, I’ve decided to feature a flower that’s blooming in my city. Victoria is known as the city of gardens and I am grateful to be surrounded by beauty.

Choosing a career that fits who you are can be tough to do. Not only are there lots of work options, there are also many education and training options that go hand-in-hand with finding meaningful work. It can seem overwhelming to figure out what to do next.

Many professional career counselors use personality type inventories, such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator ® tool to help clients understand who they are and the kinds of work they may enjoy. Understanding your personal preferences can make career planning easier. Knowing how you become energized, take in information, make decisions, and orient yourself to the world helps to assess who you are and what is important to you.

As you learn about personality type preferences, think about how you approach work and what you might like to do. For example, if you have preferences for Sensing and Judging (SJ) you likely want to have some structure and predictability in your work. You may want to be given clear directions and follow standard procedures. However, if you prefer Sensing and Perceiving (SP) you may seek flexibility and want to work in a changing, dynamic environment. For every combination of personality type preferences there is a characteristic, preferred way of approaching work. Knowing your preferences starts you on the journey of self-understanding, the first step when making a career choice.

People with different personality type preferences are attracted to different kinds of work. For example, if you have preferences for Intuition and Feeling (NF) you may enjoy working in counseling or educational roles where you can help people develop and grow. If you have preferences for Sensing and Feeling (SF) you may be attracted to practical helping or service roles. You can see, from the considerable research on the personality types of people in select occupations, if an occupation attracts people who share your preferences. Career planning books, such as What’s Your Type of Career? provide lists of  type-preferred occupations. These lists help you generate ideas and think about the career choices that might work for you.

Although I find personality type a great tool for people making career choices, I also urge you to be cautious. Here are a few tips to help you use personality type effectively in your career journey.

• If you are caught up in the middle of a crisis, give yourself some breathing room before taking inventories or making decisions. Sometimes when you complete inventories under stress the results are more about who you are in a crisis than who you normally are. In the same way, decisions made under stress may miss important considerations.

• Use validated tools. Have a career counselor or coach administer an official MBTI ® assessment or you can take the official MBTI® Complete on-line. There are two reasons for doing this. First, the official tool is more reliable and valid than many of the quick, unofficial versions. As well, the official version uses a process to validate your type. For many reasons when you fill out a self-report assessment you may get a four-letter type result that is not accurate. For example, you might answer questions thinking about what you are doing now, what you wish you were like, or what others expect from you. When you complete an official MBTI ® assessment there is a process in place to help you make sure that your self-assessment is accurate. It is a waste of time to learn about a personality type unless you are sure it is the best fit for you.

• Separate what you can do from what you prefer to do. Everyone uses all eight of the personality type preferences at least some of the time. Your personality type preferences do not limit you or define what you can and can’t do. For example, some of my favorite teachers have Introverted (I) preferences. Some of the Introverted teachers I know love to teach and tell me they like helping people understand new ideas (Many of these are also NFs). Having time to process information internally naturally energizes them. This doesn’t mean that they are unable to use Extraversion (E) in a classroom or training session. I have heard Introverted instructors tell me they are exhausted after a class or that they prefer small, intimate groups, but it would be a misuse of personality type theory to assume that Introverts wouldn’t do well at or like to teach. Same for the other preferences. Never dismiss work because people with your type are not commonly found there. Do think about what it would be like for you to work in your non-preferred mode and consider if the other rewards of that kind of work will make it a worthwhile venture for you. All four letters in your personality type code combine to make a pattern. Find a career that works with who you are overall, not work that just matches one or two of your preferences. No single type preference can be used to dismiss or highlight your career choices.

• Think about type development. You may be exploring the idea of developing non-preferred aspects of personality type. For example, an Insightful Expeditor (ENTJ) business executive in mid-life may be considering ways to make a more personal and meaningful contribution to society. This doesn’t mean a change in natural approach; it simply means added depth and balance to his or her personality. Mid-life career changers may find development is important to their choices.

• Don’t just look for one specific job match. I know it would be great to have a tool that can tell you exactly which work choice will be the “most” ideal. Although lists of occupations that attract people who share your preferences are helpful, they are only a sample of the work that is out there. As well, many other factors such as interests, values, competencies, lifestyle and constraints will affect the type of work you are suited for. Almost half of the workplace today is engaged in non-traditional work arrangements rather than jobs. Use occupational lists as a starting point or way to generate ideas rather than a “pick one of these” activity. Remember, you will likely be changing your work a number of times over the course of your life.

• Carefully consider your skills, education and experience and assess how these link to your interests and preferences. Also consider your values, lifestyle and constraints. Personality type is only one factor in career development and must be integrated with other considerations in order to make well-rounded career choices.

Using personality type information wisely makes the process of career choice easier. The practical information and insights gained from an understanding of who you are and how you prefer to work leads to wise career and educational choices.

Who you are is your foundation; you will grow and develop, but your preferences remain the same. This picture, taken by my husband Paul on our trip to the Alberta Rockies this summer, shows the stability and beauty of the mountain. As the weather changes around the mountain, different features are highlighted, but the foundation remains unchanged.

At the end of the week, it’s time to reflect. Here are the top three items that caught my attention on the net.

I found an interesting article on Jeremy Dean’s site, Psyblog. The article has information about how twitter is being used.

Jonathan Fields has great posts on his Awake @ the Wheel website. He is a creative free spirit who seems to have lots of positive energy and good ideas. I enjoy reading his perspectives. An older post from Jonathan Fields does a good job of separating the importance of the journey from the destination. It also takes pressure off those who are happily learning and living without having a burning sense of purpose!

Hannah Morgan, the Career Sherpa tends to share information and connect people, activities I admire and think are very worthwhile. Her Career Experts Daily provides links to lots of career/lifestyle blogs and articles.

For my humorous note, here is If Historical Events had Facebook Statuses. Thanks to Marianne Cantwell at Free Range Humans for tweeting about this post.

I plan to share three highlights from my exploration every Friday. To illustrate this weekly blog, I’ve decided to feature a flower that’s blooming in my city. Victoria is known as the city of gardens and I am grateful to be surrounded by beauty.

I work in the area of career planning, so obviously I think there are actions you can take to influence your future career direction. At the same time, I also want to acknowledge the role that chance plays in how our lives unfold. John Krumboltz, a well-known career theorist coined the term “planned happenstance” to describe this role of chance in our careers.

Krumboltz explains the theory in this on-line interview:

“(Planned happenstance) is the idea that really it’s not necessary to map out your entire career in advance. That a more important activity is to get involved in actions that are fun at the moment and please you and are exciting to you and do the best you can at them, see where that goes and if you like it, do more of it and if you don’t, try something else and you never know what might happen. Actually, in real life this is the way it almost always happens. But we’ve got this notion in our heads that we ought to try to plan our entire career in advance and if we can’t, then we are diagnosed as being indecisive. I think what this notion of Happenstance does is to liberate us from the notion that we have to plan our futures in advance and we can’t do it. I mean… nobody is smart enough to do it in reality but yet we have the expectation that we should be able to do it… we’ve got people that are still thinking along this line of just do this match and if somebody can’t make the match, well then, diagnose them as indecisive and blame them for not being able to do it. And of course my point of view is that the people that are unable to decide what they want to do with the rest of their life are really sensible people. And I myself am one such person. I don’t know what I’m going to do with the rest of my life but I’m having fun right now.”

When asked in the interview how he feels about his own career decisions, Krumboltz comments: “Well I’ve never made one…You know I’ve tried a lot of different things and I’ve had a lot of fun doing a lot of different things and I’m still having fun doing lots of different things. And I continue to want to have fun doing lots of different things. And if I get tired of doing something, why I’m gonna try doing something else. But I’m not making a commitment as to what kind of work I’m going to do for the rest of my life. I don’t know. I don’t know what kind of opportunities are going to crop up in the future. I don’t know how my interests are going to change. So why should I commit to doing something for the rest of my life when I don’t have the slightest idea what it’s going to be. And I don’t want to be obligated to fulfill some kind of a promise that on which I might change my mind.”

I was thinking about how this idea of planned happenstance links to the personality type preferences of Judging and Perceiving. Those who prefer Perceiving may be comfortable with the idea of happenstance and would like not being pinned down to one kind of work or experience.

On the other hand, those preferring Judging may not be excited by the idea that our career is greatly influenced by changing situational factors and unexpected events. They may prefer to plan ahead and may find it harder to see the advantages in change and may not want to jump in and take advantage of unplanned opportunities.

As with most aspects of personal preferences, we need to be tuned into and access both openness and decisiveness. I think the planned part of planned happenstance is important as we decide who we are and take action to develop skills in areas that suit our personality, interests, values, lifestyle, and constraints. Then when we are out in the world we can be open to options and opportunities that may unexpectedly occur. When you are looking for something and prepared to change, things happen!

When we were driving through the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, Canada recently I wasn’t expecting the deer in the photo above to show up. Fortunately I was prepared to photograph the unexpected.

At the end of the week, it’s time to reflect. Here are the top three items that caught my attention on the net.

1. I discovered David McRaney’s You Are Not So Smart blog. He posts articles that challenge your thinking habits and biases. This blog provides great food for thought. I’m not the only one that thinks so. David’s blog was named one of the top 100 sites of 2010 by PC magazine.

2. The next article I found was from Marianne Cantwell. It emphasizes the importance of finding a career that works for you. Her website, Free Range Humans provides a wealth of information for those seeking a personally meaningful and non-traditional career path.

3. A third highlight of the week for me was finding Gretchen Rubin’s site The Happiness Project. I imagine many of you have already heard about this project and have seen her work. I found many insightful articles there, especially her personal look at the joys and challenges of being herself.

On a humorous note, I enjoyed Paul Dunning’s look at The Progress of Mankind. OK… he’s my husband and I am biased, but I thought his first foray into the net world was creative and worth mentioning.

I enjoy surfing the net and plan to share three weekly highlights from my exploration every Friday. To illustrate this weekly blog, I’ve decided to feature a flower that’s blooming in my city. Victoria is known as the city of gardens and I am surrounded by beauty!

The sun rises on an ancient misty landscape as a small group of men gather. They survey the terrain, club in hand, discussing concerns about the hazards that lie ahead. This scene has been repeated since our earliest ancestors walked the earth, but today we call it golf.

Except for a couple of major advances we haven’t made a lot of progress since those early times, and we’ve lost a valuable lesson. I’ve put together the graph above (not to scale) to help us look at the highlights of man and woman from the dawn of mankind to present day.

1.  By this point we had climbed out of the primordial soup and evolved into human form where we lived by gathering vegetable matter (mostly by the women) and the occasional scavenged piece of meat (mostly by the men).

2.  Man discovers fire and brings it home to the cave. Everyone likes the heat. Man and woman tell stories to kids around the fire. Life improves.

3.  Woman uses fire to kill the parasites in all the scavenged bits of meat that man keeps bringing home, thereby inventing cooking. Life really improves.

4.  Man continues to bring scavenged meat home and woman continues to cook. Man makes a few tools.

5.  Man invents the wheel. Woman continues cooking and gives small wheels to the kids to play with, thereby inventing toys. Man plays “wheels” with kids after dinner.

6.  Man uses tools to combine fire and wheel, takes woman for a ride. Woman gives man a big hug because now they can go out to eat. Life improves again.

7.  Man becomes obsessed with his tools and toys. He works long hours, invents more machines. Woman also goes out to work. The kids go to a childcare facility.

8.  Man doesn’t talk to his kids. Woman has no time to cook. The kids play with machines.

People often disagree. Many of these disagreements are about how to make a decision. Some people prefer to make decisions logically while others prefer to take a more personal approach. (See my Career/Life Decision Making blog for a summary of these two approaches.) No one’s right and no one’s wrong. How do we decide and move ahead?

Which brings me to the bunnies. I live in a small city on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Our local university has “bunny” trouble. The problem is there are way too many bunnies eating the gardens, becoming road kill, digging holes in athletic fields, leaving little bunny pellets everywhere, and so on. From a logical perspective the obvious decision is to “dispose” of the vermin. Many who take this side of the situation argue that the rabbits would be great meals for those in need of food, a logical use of excess wildlife.

However, the bunnies are also cute and add a sense of wonder and friendliness to the campus. Many people enjoy looking at them and are appalled by the thought of killing cuddly bunnies. Vegetarians are shocked that people might want to eat these lovely creatures and animal rights activists have recently obtained an injunction that halted actions by the university to cull the bunnies from campus.

OK… I’m not going to take a side here. I’m sharing the example to show how the same situation can result in a totally different decision depending on what information is considered, the process for deciding, and the values and principles involved.

Decision-making at home or on the job often highlights these logical/personal differences in approach. Decisions about how to use resources, firing staff, or disciplining children can result in conflicts when people focus on different ways of deciding. What is the best way to decide? That depends on the situation. Start by seeing the situation from both perspectives and try to create win-win solutions that accommodate both approaches. Sometimes the more logical solution is best and other times the values-based approach is more appropriate. Any important decision deserves consideration from both perspectives.

The bunny problem has been around for a while and is keeping the university hopping to meet everyone’s needs. I’m just happy to live in a city where rampant bunnies are headline news. By the way, did I mention the other major conflict between urban deer and our flowers?

At the end of the week, it’s time to reflect. Here are the top three items that caught my attention on the net.

1. Understanding and appreciating personality type differences are always important topics to explore. The article A Giant Step Backwards for Introverts this week by Nancy Ancowitz and Laurie Helgoe provided a positive view of those who prefer introversion. There is not enough “good stuff” out there talking about the advantages of having a reflective approach.

2. The next post I found interesting, The Number 1 Quality for Career Success was from Curt Rosengren reminding us that career success takes effort. I think positive attitude and a “can do it” mindset are important, but sometimes getting to where we want to go just takes hard work. I like the way Curt approaches this topic.

3. The third highlight of the week for me was finding Wise Bread. The values-based and ecologically friendly tag line on this site, “living large on a small budget”, resonates with me. I have always believed that when someone is aware of and careful about what they are consuming, he or she creates more time and freedom to indulge in life’s simple pleasures.

On a humorous note, I don’t know if these interview behaviors are fact or urban myth, but they gave me a good chuckle.

I enjoy surfing the net and plan to share three weekly highlights from my exploration every Friday. On the last Tsawwassen ferry home to Swartz Bay I took this picture as the sun touched the sea. I hope this weekly highlight blog contains an idea or tip that touches your world!

Chrissy Scivicque’s blog last week on “How to Make Wise Career Choices” got me thinking about how people tend to make their career/life decisions. Often these decisions are made quickly and impulsively.

Many of my early career decisions were made in a haphazard way. A friend helped me get a job with her as a tree planter when I was bored working in an office. I took another job in the Rockies, because it was a place I wanted to spend the summer. School decisions were similar. I started university because most of my friends were going. I enrolled in science because I imagined myself being a marine biologist playing with dolphins, but gave up that idea when I had to pith a frog. Yuck. Fortunately, I took psychology and education courses that led me down a career path that has been interesting and rewarding.

Think about the evolution of your career. How have you decided what to do next? What information did you gather before deciding? How did your previous decisions work out? These questions might help you make better career/life decisions.

Your personality preferences may affect how you decide. Some people prefer to be analytical and logical when making decisions while others are more interested in aligning decisions to their values and the needs of the people involved. These preferences are called Thinking (T), the logical approach, and Feeling (F), the values-based approach, in personality type language. See the checklist below for a summary of these two decision-making approaches. If you are using one approach much more than the other, consider incorporating the other one into your decision-making process. This will help you make well-rounded decisions.

When using logical-analytical decision-making (T), people tend to:

• Weigh the pros (benefits) and cons (disadvantages) of options
• Check that an option is reasonable
• Remain objective
• Analyze all the logical consequences and implications of the choice
• Look at the principles involved in the situation

When using values-based decision-making (F), people tend to

• Weigh options using personal, subjective beliefs and values
• Assess how decisions will affect others
• Look at how the harmony of the social environment will be affected
• Consider who will support them in their decisions
• Consider the likes, dislikes, and commitments of others

Of course, the best decision incorporates both the logical and personal side of the situation. Your career decisions are important so consider both the F and the T perspective before you take action.

Paul, my husband, took this photo of a goose recently at the nature sanctuary where we walk. At the risk of interpreting the goose’s thoughts incorrectly, it looks like this goose is trying to decide which way to go, a possible career-decision-point for a goose.