I’ve always been someone who watches and learns before trying something myself, wanting to get it right the first time. This perfectionism often led to indecision and anxiety about making mistakes or upsetting others. As a child and even into adulthood, I was the one who always followed the rules.
It wasn’t until grad school that I took my first personality assessment, which was a real eye-opener. It gave me the language to understand and explain my behavior patterns, and it connected me with others who shared similar traits. It was reassuring to find people like me, but it also helped me to grasp the perspectives of those who were very different. I’ve never had trouble getting along with others, but I didn’t always understand why they acted the way they did. At 23 years old, the assessment taught me a lot about myself, but I didn’t fully apply that knowledge in the real world. In my first job, I struggled because I was still approaching work like a school assignment, focusing on perfect execution rather than learning to navigate the complexities of the workplace and office politics.
For three years, I was at that job where, despite working closely with my supervisor, we never connected beyond work tasks. Our office was full of tension, and I was cautious, trying to understand everyone’s intentions without overstepping. We even completed a behavioral assessment but never acted on the insights it provided.
Leaving wasn’t tough, but it left me questioning my career path. That’s when I found a job working for TTI Success Insights. I’ve always believed in the power of assessments and was thrilled by the prospect of working somewhere that embraced their transformative potential. At TTI, I dove into the science behind the assessments and was captivated by our team’s commitment to personal growth and the rigorous research that validated our methods. It’s one thing to call these tools behavior tests, but I’ve learned they’re much deeper, grounded in neuroscience, and they reveal the alignment between subconscious reactions and conscious thoughts—a level of insight that’s undeniably profound.
Understanding myself better has been a game changer in my interactions with family and colleagues. It’s like having insider knowledge that helps me decode our interactions.
My experience in the brain lab last spring was even more eye-opening. I was apprehensive at first, but the brain imaging exercise was a powerful confirmation of the personal healing I’d been working on. It was enlightening to see that words linked to past trauma didn’t affect me as strongly as I anticipated, suggesting I had moved past issues more than I had realized.
This realization was liberating, showing me that while I’m still conscious of my past, it no longer has a grip on me. Similarly, positive stimuli that resonated with me on the screen were a joy to acknowledge. It’s one thing to feel joy but another to have it confirmed through brain imaging. This level of self-understanding is incredibly validating. And with this knowledge, there’s the powerful option to unpack and learn from it.
This is an exclusive excerpt from The Five Sciences of Self: How Personal Insights Create Transformative Impact , the latest literary offering from TTI Success Insights.
What Is The Five Sciences of Self?
Written by Dr. Ron Bonnstetter and Carissa Collazo, MS, The Five Sciences of Self explores the intricate dynamics of human behavior through five disciplines: DISC, motivation, workplace competencies, emotional intelligence, and the Hartman Value Profile. These disciplines form the basis for transformative assessments that shed light on the underlying motivations and decision-making processes that guide personal and professional growth.
