If you know what the Myers-Briggs test is, the odds increased that you might have taken the test once or twice…

Or you’ve taken the test multiple times throughout the years to see if you’ve changed between your 13-year-old emo phase and the 18-year-old college student that you’ve become (guilty). Or even simply taking it for your own amusement to see where you stand in the world compared to other people (also guilty).

I don’t know about you, but if you’ve taken a psychology class, you’ve probably heard of these inventories- more than likely you’ve studied them. In all seriousness, this sort of personality inventory test is one that takes various traits of your personality and matches it to one of the 16 personality types created by Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers based off of Carl Jung’s personality inventory.

Some of the traits that define a personality type include extraversion/introversion, sensing/intuitive, feeling/thinking, and perceiving/judging. If you’re still looking for a formal definition of the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (aka MBTI), basically the test is, “An introspective self-report questionnaire with the purpose of indicating differing psychological preferences in how people perceive the world around them and make decisions” according to the definition of the test on Wikipedia.

So, now that you have an idea of what this test is, it’s safe to assume that you might be tempted to take the test if you haven’t taken it, or maybe even haven’t taken it in a while, or even if you’re curious what your personality type is. The website I like/most commonly use is 16 Personalities.

It not only gives a free version of the test, but also gives details, descriptions, and information about relationships, both romantic and platonic relationships; it even gives career path advice. The website gives so much information about your personality type.

There’s been so many times that I read these personality trait informatives and even those little posts about “Ways to tell you’re an ENFP” or “Stuff ENFPs say,” among others.

There are even been times when I’ve read a post and sat there stunned at the seeming precision of how much my own personality traits and the way I am matches some of the parts of the true ENFP definition.

Also, can you tell I’m a proud ENFP?

But seriously, with each time that I take this test albeit a reliable test it’s not the real one, it reveals how much not only that your true personality doesn’t change, but rather evolves, but also how each person has specific traits that make them who they are. There are personality traits of an ENFP like curiosity, being friendly, or observant, and they match up with traits that I, throughout the years, have seen in myself and others have seen in me.

I might say it once, I might say it a hundred times: I’m an ENFP through and through.

Having probably taken this test more than the average human problem does, I’ve tracked the personality traits in myself in ways where I can see how each part of me- even the quirkier parts- is not transforming itself, but simply changing in a maturation way.

I admit, there were times growing up that I became less of an extrovert and started questioning my own personality. I do know that with the evolution of who I’m becoming throughout life I have still stayed me, confirmed by both this test. Like I said, I’ve probably taken this test more than the average human; it's who I am at my core.

Each person throughout their life should be able to see that who you are, at your core, doesn’t change fully. Yet, we can hide parts of ourselves that make it appear like we do, we never fully change who we are. Who we are builds a foundation for how we live our life. It builds a foundation for a career we can follow, for what we do with our lives.

As I mentioned before, the MBTI test is one that determines who we are at a glance, but it doesn’t determine who we make ourselves become and how we live our lives. It shows how we can live our lives to its potential and a test simply telling you the type of human you are, although living through that personality and even having the test tell you what you can do later in life can be beneficial.

This test doesn’t lie when telling you who you are at your core. The thing about it though, is that this test should be an introspective report, as the definition describes, but an introspective report helping you live up to the best you that you can be.

To embrace the quirks that come with your personality, the negative and positive aspects, and even some of your own habits. Life is about learning to embrace who you are. You are who you are for a reason and you’re a wonderful human being however you are. You may see it in yourself or other people, but we all change. Whether drastically or simply only a bit as time progresses, but we all develop into people we once weren’t or were a version shy of being.

So whether the odds are that you’ve just taken this test before reading the entire article or you are taking it for what feels like the millionth time, either for school or for your own amusement, remember who you are at your core and show those around you that you are no longer the 13-year old going through their emo phase or even how you’re growing up and out of the 18-year-old just starting their adventures through life.