Thursday, September 19, 2019

Analyze Yourself! A book review

It’s hard to be something for someone else if we don’t even know who we are. So let’s start there.

Who are you?

If you’ve never taken a personality test, there are plenty available online. But are they accurate or just some crazy mumbo-jumbo? As I’ve said before there are several different types and I recently came across a book that explains many of them.

Analyze Yourself! The Ultimate Personality Guide by Jennifer Freed and Debra Birnbaum was very enlightening. For instance, I had never even heard of Ayurveda or enneagram, which made me a little nervous, but I found the concepts of both interesting without wandering too far down the mystical path.

It covers Western astrology – what’s your sign? As well as Chinese astrology which is only based on your birth year. As a warning, you may not want to investigate this system if you’re likely to be offended at learning you are a rat, snake, dog or dragon. In some of these systems I could readily recognize myself while others were totally off.

Overall, I found this book useful. Not only does it list the strengths and weaknesses, but it also explains how the characteristics of each personality will play out in romance, friendships, career, finances, fitness and personal style. I find this especially helpful when deciding on hobbies and careers for my characters. And it may help you the same way. 

Even if everything doesn’t fit you might find revealing tidbits, like I did in this paragraph: “Rabbits work best alone and for themselves…You will thrive in a position that offers a lot of privacy to do your work.” Hmm, think that describes a writer?


So take this information with a grain of salt. Have fun trying to figure out the personalities of random people you meet. But mostly use it to recognize traits within yourself, strengths and weaknesses, to either build on or be aware of as you search for the perfect hero to complement you. 

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