Do you ever catch yourself saying ‘that’s just the way I am…’ as a way to justify your behaviour and because you genuinely believe this?
Why am I asking?
Because sometimes thinking in this way can mean that we miss out .. on new opportunities, on new experiences, on a spell of good weather, on a chance to grow.
I found myself reflecting on this this morning (bank holiday Monday in the UK as I write this). In part, I think it has come into my head because I am in the middle of designing a half day team exploratory session based on the The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).
The MBTI is defined as a psychological assessment tool that categorizes individuals into one of 16 personality types based on their preferences across four dichotomous characteristics, used to enhance self-understanding and interpersonal awareness.
One of the preference dichotomies relates to how we structure and live our lives – either in a more structured, scheduled and planned way, coming to decisions more quickly (known as the ‘Judging’ preference) , or in a more flexible, open-ended way, preferring to take time to continue to gather information before closing on a decision (known as the ‘Perceiving’ preference).
I have a preference for the more structured approach – I like to plan ahead including goals for a year, a quarter, a month and a week ahead.
When helping a client to understand their MBTI preference, one of the questions that often gets asked in relation to the Judging v Perceiving dichotomy is “Do you tend to work before you play, play before you work, or mix work with play?”. Typically, a judging preference will tend to work before they play.
This always used to be me .. to the point that I could miss out on the nice weather in a day because I’d work for a morning and then be ready to go out in the afternoon when it had clouded over and rain was in the air.
In June 2024, Pschology Junkie posted an article exploring the percentage of respondents of each MBTI type who prefer to work before play, mix play with work, or play before work. The image below shows the results for people with my preference type ‘INTJ’. Over 80% of those responding with an INTJ preference chose to work before play.
Image Source: PsychologyJunkie.com
Today I chose differently. It may not seem a lot, (and yes I had done 30 minutes of work before I took time out but ONLY 30 minutes) but I drove to a favourite coffee spot and had a coffee in the sunshine before a food shop and then coming back to my home office.
It felt good. And I wasn’t constantly thinking ‘I should be working’ .
This is more like the behaviour of the MBTI type ‘INTP’ – it’s a subtle difference in type – just one dimension – to prefer the ‘perceiving’ style of flexibility and keeping things open, to the ‘judging’ structured style – but what a difference in percentages: 47.22% preferring to mix work and play, 27.78% preferring to play and then work, and just 25% preferring to work and then play.
A preference is just that – something we prefer to do – it doesn’t mean we can’t act differently although if we are not careful we may find that more difficult as we stick more and more to our preferred way of doing something.
If we want to make the most of the opportunities in our lives and in our work and careers, sometimes it can be helpful to work against our natural preference – not only to give us other options, but to help us grow and learn, shaping new neural pathways and becoming more comfortable with doing something that may have previously made us uncomfortable.
While I am back at my desk writing this, I am again now going to take a break .. mixing work and play for a walk in the countryside… I think me of 20 years ago would be anxious wondering ‘who is this person, and when is ‘old’ Helen coming back?’
What’s your preference when it comes to work and play? How would it feel to change it up a bit? What might you gain from doing so?
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