clarissa.cabbageAs temperatures drop and darkness claims more and more of our waking hours, the last days of 2020 are ticking away. It is the end of another year. A natural time for introspection, self-reflection, and self-discovery.
Today our topic of discussion is self-discovery and how it relates to personal growth.
This post will cover the importance of self-discovery, as well as give you a starting spot for your own self-discovery journey with four incredibly insightful self-discovery quizzes. Let’s get right to it!
Table of Contents
The Importance Of Self-Discovery
When doing research for this post, I tried to find a single definition for, “self-discovery” that fully captured the meaning of the word.
However, none of the definitions I came across seemed quite complete.
They all agreed that self-discovery was a journey or process where people attempted to get to know themselves better, yet they all listed the topics of self-discovery to be quite different.
The definitions I read mentioned that self-discovery was exploring your own: needs, motivators, priorities, values, purpose, thought patterns, beliefs, passions, character, potential, strengths, weaknesses, abilities, and emotions, among other things.
In other words, self-discovery can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.
However, one thing the various definitions did seem to agree on, was that without self-discovery, personal growth is not possible.
In other words, self-discovery is a prerequisite for self-improvement and personal growth.
This makes sense, because without a solid understanding of yourself, your goals and maybe even your life in general, may lack direction.
So instead of a concrete definition, I’ll share one of my favorite self-discovery quotes with you:
“The greatest discovery in life is self-discovery. Until you find yourself, you will always be someone else. Become yourself.”
– Myles Munroe
My Top 4 Favorite Self-Discovery Quizzes
For the remainder of this post I will introduce you to my favorite self-discovery quizzes, assessments, and surveys.
Each quiz has a different and unique purpose. So rather than taking all of them, please feel free to pick and choose the ones that relate to the area of your life that you would like to learn more about.
The Life Balance Quiz
Purpose: To help you identify the areas of your life that may be good opportunities for improvement in terms of overall well-being and happiness.
Why You Should Care
Psychologists and behavior change researchers generally agree that there are 8 dimensions to overall wellness and well-being.
In order for a person to feel happy and fulfilled with the life that they lead, they must have balance among each of these 8 dimensions.
The dimensions of wellness include: career, security (financial and environmental), physical health, mindset, morality and values, recreation and relaxation, personal growth, and relationships.
What I love about this quiz is that it gives you some insightful information to help kick-off your self-discovery journey, and a better idea about what might be good goals for you to focus on in the coming year.
Who The Life Balance Quiz Is For
This quiz is perfect for people that are interested in starting new goals, New Year’s Resolutions, or a personal growth project but may need a little help identifying the areas of their life that offer the greatest opportunity for improvement.
What To Expect
This quiz should take you about 5-7 minutes to complete. It consists of a total of 40 different statements (5 per wellness dimension) to which you will be asked to respond on a scale of “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”.
At the end of this quiz, you will get an overall well-being score, and if you enter your email address you’ll get a FREE in-depth Well-Being Report that gives you your individual scores for each of the 8 dimensions of wellness.
I would highly recommend entering your email for the detailed report – it’s worth it! And there are no strings attached.
VIA Character Strengths Quiz
Purpose: To identify your personal character strengths.
Why You Should Care
Over the years, positive psychologists have learned that people are more likely to achieve their goals if they focus on their personal strengths rather than fixating on their weaknesses.
This quiz helps you to identify which of the 24 character strengths come most naturally to you.
Once you have identified and understand these strengths, you can call on them to help you reach your goals.
Who The Quiz Is For
Pretty much everyone could benefit from this quiz, but especially those that may have trouble seeing their own strengths, or may have low confidence.
What To Expect
In order to be able to take this quiz, you do have to create a free account.
The quiz is 96 questions long, and should take roughly 12-15 minutes to complete.
When you finish the quiz, you will then get a report of your top 5 character strengths that you can read all about. My results looked like this:
16 Personalities Quiz
Purpose: Find out which of the 16 personalities you have!
Why You Should Care
According to the 16 Personalities website, this assessment is based on the famous Myers-Briggs model which is strongly rooted in psychology research.
A person’s personality affects how they perceive the world, interact with others, and how they go about making decisions in their life.
In short, your personality type might give you some information about why you think and behave as you do.
Who The Quiz Is For
I have always thought these sort of personality quizzes were a lot of fun. This one has the most research backing it of any other personality quiz on the market, so if you’re curious, it can’t hurt to give it a try!
What to Expect
This test has 93 questions. The website says it should take you about 12 minutes to complete the test, which I found to be pretty accurate.
In the results you will be able to read over all sorts of information in addition to your personality type such as famous people who share your personality type and how your personality type might affect different aspects of your life such as your career or relationships.
5 Love Languages Quiz
Purpose: To help you identify how you give and receive love.
Why You Should Care
People are social creatures. The quality of our relationships play a big role in our overall happiness and sense of life satisfaction.
Relationships take a lot of effort and nurturing to thrive, and sometimes our love can be lost in translation between ourselves and our partners.
Psychologist Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the book The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts came up with this quiz which helps us to learn about our own, as well as our partner’s love languages so that we know how to best give love to our partners.
Who The Quiz Is For
There are multiple versions of this quiz that make it suitable for pretty much anyone!
There is a version for people that are in a relationship currently, those that are single, and even ones for parents of children and teens to learn how their kids give and receive love.
What to Expect
When you go to the main page of the 5 Love Languages website you will be able to choose one of the four tests that’s most applicable to you.
Afterwards you will be given questions where you will be asked to choose which of the two gestures of love is more meaningful for you.
Then at the end you will be given your result which is your primary love language.
Conclusion
Self-discovery is an important prerequisite for personal growth.
So before setting your New Year’s Resolutions and goals for 2021, try out one or more of these self-discovery quizzes!
Take the:
- Life Balance Quiz to find out which part(s) of your life may need some work.
- VIA Character Strengths Quiz to learn about your own strengths.
- 16 Personalities Quiz to learn about your personality type.
- 5 Love Languages Quiz to learn about how you give and receive love.
Have you taken any of these quizzes before? Are there any you think you might like to try soon? What other self-discovery methods are you a fan of?
Let’s continue the conversation in the comments!
~Clarissa
Love this post, Clarissa, cool topic! I’ll have to share with my wife, she’s really into these sorts of self-assessments. I’m curious to see your life balance quiz, I like the idea. Gretchen Rubin’s 4 Tendencies has also been one of my favorites of these, and a lens for self-understanding that I rely on all the time!
That’s awesome Sam! I hope that your wife enjoys the quizzes. You have mentioned the four tendencies a few times now, so I have officially added it to my 2021 reading list! Thanks so much!
16 personalities was great for me to! It taught me so much about myself and how I work with others.
Yes! That’s awesome Lisa! Very valuable information. I know people can be leary with personality tests but I really find this one to be an informative and insightful one!
These are some great assessments and quizzes which I’d love to try out. Great post Clarissa and thanks for sharing!
Yay, happy to hear you enjoyed the post Demi! I hope you enjoy the quizzes when you’re ready to take them!
Self-discovery is so important, and definitely something that we need to be focusing on as we leave 2020 and start the new year. I love this post, thank you for sharing these quizzes and helping others find themselves x
Awww thank you Eleanor, it is really a passion of mine! I’m glad you enjoyed the post. Happy new years and best of luck on your upcoming goals!
What a lovely and very different kind of post! I am going to treat 2021 as my year of self discovery!
Rosie
Awww that makes my day Rosie! I recently read in a newsletter from Gretchen Rubin that a good thought exercise for the new year was to choose a one word theme or focus for the coming year, and I really liked that idea. Maybe self-discovery would be yours!
This is perfect and very informative! I’m looking for personal growth and I will need this, for sure. Thank you so much for sharing it!
You’re very welcome! This is a great way to transition into a new year of personal growth. Thanks for reading and best of luck on your journey!
Self-discovery is so important for any kind of personal growth. I’ve always sought to know myself better, so these quizzes are right up my alley. Thank you so much for sharing them. I look forward to learning more about myself.
You’re very welcome Tiffany! I love these kind of quizzes and think you really can learn a lot about them. I hope you enjoy taking them as much as I did!
Great post!
I’m a bit of a self discovery junkie but the Mayer’s Briggs personality test and the 5 love languages quiz have been the most enlightening for me.
They helped me make sense of and articulate what I’m like in life and relationships
Awesome Rudiano! I think I learned the most from the 5 Love Languages test (well the book actually). My friend had told me about it for years and I put it off, put it off,and finally I read it and wished I had done it much sooner! It gave me a whole new framework for thinking about love and relationships.
I love that the quizzes you share all target different areas of our lives and relationship spectrums. I find it interesting to see what a quiz throws back at me based on my answers; sometimes there is something there to nod over and start working at. 🙂
For sure Jaya! I have definitely gained some really insightful info from these quizzes that I’ve then been able to incorporate into my goals. I am glad you appreciate how they all cover different parts of life. Thanks so much for reading!
Awesome ideas, so creative and cute. Love quizes and the one about balance is always good to try..
I’m glad you enjoyed it! I think this love languages quiz especially is really great and love that it’s based on a relationship therapists life work! A lot of the love ones seem not to be based on much, so this one is even more insightful.
I have done a couple of these quizzes before, but there are also a couple that are new to me. I’m going to have to dig into these and give them a try! I love doing self-discovery quizzes as they help to shine a light on aspects of my personality that I may otherwise be blind to. It’s only through self-reflection and understanding that we are able to grow and evolve into the best version of ourselves, right?
Yes, that’s absolutely right Britt! Self-discovery is a prerequisite to personal growth. I may be a bit of a nerd but I love these types of tests and what I can learn from them. I’m glad you enjoy them as well!
I quite enjoy doing these kinds of quizzes and seeing what the results reveal. I think any tool like this that may help us in some way is good to try out as it may point us towards things we had not realized or considered. I will take a look at your suggestions!
I definitely agree Molly! Quizzes like this can give us a new lens through which to look at ourselves and our lives. I hope you enjoy the quizzes and learn as much from them as I did!
Great post! I’ve done many personality tests over the years and am always amazed at how insightful they are. I’d love to retake some of these from 20 years ago and see if, and how much, I have changed.
That’s an awesome idea Jodie! I personally think it’s possible for the results to change over the years, although I know some people would argue otherwise. It’d be very interesting to see! I feel that I am a much different person now than I was 5-6 years ago.
Thanks for sharing Clarissa! It’s a very interesting topic! I took the first quiz and will save the rest for later 🙂
Awesome Christina! I hope it gave you a little insight into your life balance. Enjoy the others, and happy new year!
Awesome Christina! I hope it gave you a little insight into your life balance. Enjoy the others, and happy new year!
Oh this is awesome I’ve taken the last two but not the first two. For a really long time I tied in love languages, but now quality time has a slight edge above the rest, and gifts a little less. Otherwise still even. I seem to score evenly on most personality tests, especially Meyers Briggs! Drives me nuts! 🙂 Anyway, thanks for these! Appreciate it.
Haha that is funny Zoe! You’re pretty evenly balanced I guess! I’m definitely physical touch when it comes to the love languages with quality time second to that. If you have time check out that first one, I think you might like it! Thanks for stopping by and reading!
I have only taken the 16 Personalities quiz but really enjoyed it, and definitely found it to be insightful, Any sort of quiz like that I’d be excited to try, so thanks so much for sharing!
Anika | chaptersofmay.com
You’re welcome Anika! I found the 16 Personalities Quiz to be pretty spot on and enjoyable as well. If you liked that I think you’ll like these others as well! Thanks for stopping by!
I love taking quizzes especially those that help me learn more about my personality and why I am the way I am. One of my fave quizzes/tests was the Strengths Finder Test by Gallup. It was so cool to find out what are my top 5 strengths. 🙂 I’ve taken the 16 personalities and Love Language quizzes as well and will check out the others you mentioned in your post. 🙂
Awesome Izzy! I love these as well. I have never taken the Gallup quiz but it sounds like it is similar to the VIA Character Strengths one. I’ll have to give it a try and see which I like better. Thanks for the recommendation! ☺️
Honestly, I’m not into these quizzes to know your personality or your ideal partner. I know this is mainly for entertainment purposes but I worry for some who actually believe in this. I’m willing to try the ones you’ve mentioned though!
Thanks Clarissa, I have always had the school of thought that, self-discovery helps you discern fleeting happiness and the genuine one. Introspection is very helpful as well.
Lovely post. I took the life balance quiz and got some good insights into where I need to improve on. Thanks so much!
Self discovery is so important! I’ve found a lot about myself via meditation! Love these quizzes, too! Thanks for sharing!
I love this post! I didn’t even know that personality quizzes existed. The Life Balance Quiz and 16 Personalities Quiz are the two I would love to try. I think they can be really great guides into knowing how to achieve your goals. Great post, Clarissa!
Taiwo | alifestylenerd.wordpress.com
What a fun post, Clarissa! I’ve taken the Myers-Briggs test many times over the years. One of the perks of some of my social work jobs has been the focus on self-awareness and self-development. The 5 Love Languages quiz sounds like a fun activity for a date night with my husband!
Such an interesting article, I love taking quizzes. These are some great self-discovery advice. I really enjoyed your article, thanks for sharing this.
I love quizzes too Lomash! It’s a much more fun and interactive way to learn if you ask me. Thanks so much for reading!
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this post – It’s such an interesting topic of discussion, and if I’m perfectly honest, I cannot say no to a good quiz! Self-discovery is such an important thing, and I think it’s vital we all take that journey when we’re ready, so this post is perfect for anyone starting their journey! Thank you so much for sharing.
Hannah | acupofwonderland.com
You are very welcome Hannah! I’m with you, I can’t pass up on a good quiz. there’s such a fun and interactive way of learning about yourself. I love the point that I love the point that You make about everyone needing to do their self-discovery in their own time and that these quizzes can be a great place to start. Thank you so much for sharing and contributing to the conversation here!
I really enjoyed the enneagram quiz and your post reminded me to take the love language quiz again! I totally forgot what my results were and I’ve been meaning to take it 🙂 I love taking quizzes! You always get to learn something about yourself that you might’ve not been weren’t fully aware of.
I’m with you Lynn, I have always enjoyed these sort of quizzes. I was a bit late to the game learning about the five love languages quiz but as you said that one was kind of a game changer for me. I had never thought of love or relationships in that sort of way before. So I learned a lot about myself from taking it as well as a different way to think about how different people experience love differently, which I think is pretty cool! I don’t think I would have ever come to that realization on my own.
I’ve already done the personality test (INFJ) and love languages quiz, but now I’m eager to do the first two. Thanks for sharing!
All the best, Michelle (michellesclutterbox.com)
Very cool Michelle! I love these sort of self discovery quizzes as well. We have the same personality type, that’s awesome! Check the first 2 out,sounds like you’ll love them!