“A good plan vigorously executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week.”

George Patton, US general

Your personality is as unique as a snowflake. Perhaps you’re ultra-high or super-low or somewhere in between on each dimension. Whatever your pattern, you should now understand the profound nature of your personality. You should have a good idea of your strengths and shortcomings, the situations that suit you and those that don’t.

Now what?

In this chapter, I’ll walk you through five simple steps to create your personal action plan. You can find fulfilment and achieve your goals.

Step 1: Find a niche but take responsibility for change

You have a unique personality, a set of preferences that governs how you think and feel. You must respect this individual nature. You will be most fulfilled by pursuing work and personal situations that allow you to deploy your strengths. Rather than fighting constantly against your natural inclinations, recognise that certain pathways and life choices suit you better than others.

If you find certain tasks at work either mind-numbingly boring or heart-stoppingly stressful, try to swap them with a colleague who is excited by them. If you hate particular chores at home, offer to do something else useful instead. Say ‘yes’ to what suits you; where possible, politely turn down what doesn’t. Pursue opportunities that feel right and get out of bad routines. Even change jobs, find new friends.

Listen to the authentic voice within you that is your personality. And use all of the talents you have at your disposal to make your situation fit you – not the other way around. This is about finding a niche that allows you to be comfortable, happy, fulfilled.

When you play to your strengths you can’t help but do well. Success becomes the happy accident of being in a situation that you enjoy. So every time you make a major decision about your life or your loves, your work or your home, ask yourself, ‘Does this new situation allow me to be myself most of the time?’

Playing to your strengths, however, does not mean that you can excuse all of your flaws. No one can succeed by giving in to their instincts all of the time. Make no mistake, we all have habits that we could improve and change.

I sometimes hear people say they don’t believe they can change. You probably know a few individuals like that too. They say things like:

• ‘I’ve always had a quick temper.
• ‘I can’t help being negative.’
• ‘I’m too old to change my ways.’
• ‘I know I’m shy – that’s just the way I am.’

They argue that their failings are down to their genetic make-up or perhaps the way they were brought up as children.

But they’re wrong.

I like chocolate. My brain is somehow wired to give me a huge buzz whenever I wolf down a single piece. And then I want more, more, more. All the same, I can choose to pick up an apple instead of a chocolate bar.

Your brain’s autopilot may be set to seek out order, precision and tidiness (or to hate it). But you can choose to be different. To relax your standards rather than come across as an uptight parent or micro-managing boss. Or tighten them up so you don’t come across as sloppy and haphazard.

Remember, our brains continue to grow new brain cells right through to old age. I mentioned this in Chapter 1 but it’s so important I’ll say it again. We can learn new ways to behave. We can change our habits. We can learn to be less temperamental, more positive, more organised, more creative, less pushy and so on.

I’m sure you won’t use such excuses to justify your behaviour. You won’t use that kind of defeatist language – you know better. But it’s worth mentioning if you ever decide to pass this book on to a colleague, a friend, a loved one. If you want other people to change, you have to help them understand that they must take personal responsibility for change.

Step 2: Decide on your priorities

I’ve presented you with plenty of ideas on how to develop yourself. Whether you’re high or low or in between for each personality dimension, each chapter has given you a handful of recommendations on how to make the best of yourself.

Trouble is, seven personality dimensions multiplied by three or four recommendations each is a lot to take in all at once. So let’s make it easier for you. Let’s prioritise what you should be focusing on.

To start with, let’s create a summary of your personality profile here. Copy out and complete the table opposite.

Most people find that it’s the extremes of their personality that deserve the most attention. If you have a personality score for any particular dimension that is somewhere in the middle, that implies you have a balanced approach. Someone who is average for Inquisitiveness may be somewhat creative but also OK with implementation. Someone who’s average for Sensitivity may be reasonably tactful yet also able to be direct when necessary. So for the moment, I suggest you ignore the personality dimensions where you score in the average zone.

Step 3: Get a second opinion

This is optional, but I think you’ll miss out if you don’t do it.

When it comes to my personal development, I know I can always turn to David. I worked with David some years ago. We shared an office and had similar views about the world. We grumbled about the same things, got each other through tough times and had a laugh along the way. As well as being a good friend, he’s bright and always has an opinion. He has my best interests at heart and I trust him to tell me the truth. Even if the truth is hard-hitting and something I don’t necessarily want to hear.

So who would your David be?

Before you decide what you should do to develop yourself, get a second opinion from your David. You’re looking for someone who:

• knows you well
• wants you to succeed and has your best interests at heart
• will tell you the truth about yourself.

Show the table you created in Step 2 to your David. Explain each of the personality dimensions and what your scores are. Explain that you want to get better at everything you do and ask, ‘Which of these actions do you think would make the biggest difference to me?’

Ask the question, then listen to the answers. Be prepared for an interesting conversation!

Step 4: Choose your top three

Time to choose what you’re going to do. Taking into consideration your own thoughts and the second opinion you’ve been given, what do you think you need to work on most?

Think about what people say to you. Does your partner wish that you could be more outgoing or more retiring? Does your boss criticise you for being insufficiently creative or so inspired that you never finish anything off? Do you wish deep down that you could be more of something or less of something else?

Look back at your table from Step 2 and at what you put in the column of possible actions to take. Looking only at those personality dimensions where your scores were either high or low, ask yourself, ‘Which handful of actions jump out at me?’ Which three to five actions strike you as having the potential to make the biggest difference to your life, work, satisfaction and success?

Write at least three (but no more than five) actions out here:

• Action 1: ................................................................................................
• Action 2: ................................................................................................
• Action 3: ................................................................................................

Don’t worry. We’re not going to ignore all of the other development actions that you could be taking. But it’s good to start with a small number. Once you’ve gained momentum and made progress with this initial handful, you can come back and add more actions to your list.

Step 5: Set goals so that you can score

Perhaps you know someone who joined a gym but gave up? Or someone who decided to give up cigarettes or chocolate or some other vice but who ultimately couldn’t manage it? Well, that’s not going to happen to you.

Having the ambition to change is a great start. But research tells us that people with vague, insufficiently focused goals nearly always fall back into old habits. Whether you believe in the power of cosmic ordering or the psychology of goal-setting, I can tell you that you will achieve more by setting decisive goals.

Four letters make all the difference: SPOT. These will help us because we have the best shot of changing our behaviour when we set goals that are:

• Stretching and significant
• Positive
• Observable
• Timed

I have written a lot about the psychology of goal-setting in another book, Confidence: The art of getting whatever you want (Prentice Hall, 2008), but I’ll summarise it for you here.

Your goals need to have the following qualities:

• Stretching and significant. Your goals have to be at least a little challenging and motivating. You have to want to change. If you’re changing purely because someone else is nagging you, you won’t have the motivation to keep it up. So only choose goals that you really, really want.
• Positive. The brain works in mysterious ways. One odd fact is that the brain struggles to deal in negatives – ‘Don’t eat a burger’, ‘Don’t get angry’, ‘Stop being so shy’. When we hear instructions like those, we tend to ignore the ‘don’t’ or ‘stop’ and instead focus on ‘burger’, ‘angry’, ‘shy’ so we actually make ourselves more likely to want a burger, get angry or be shy! So avoid the word ‘don’t’. Instead focus on what you do want to do – ‘Eat more salads’, ‘Stay calm’, ‘Speak up in public’. Lab studies tell us that people who set positive goals are more likely to achieve them. Enough said.
• Observable. Sportspeople have known this for years. When they practise, they set precise goals that third parties could observe and say, ‘Yes, you did it’ or ‘No, that was no good.’ When Tiger Woods hones his golf game, he doesn’t say, ‘I want to get better at golf.’ No, he sets an observable goal, such as, ‘I want to be able to hit a golf ball with a seven iron and get it to within ten feet of the hole 90 per cent of the time.’ Only that way can you and any observers watch and say, ‘Yes, you made it.’ Make your goals observable and you will know when you’ve achieved them.
• Timed. Having a goal is great, but when are you going to do it? A big risk for lots of people is that they keep putting things off until tomorrow. But we all know that tomorrow never comes! Some people have the best intentions in the world, but never get started. They want to write a book, travel somewhere exotic, learn a language, take up a sport, chase a promotion, get a new job. But they say ‘some day’ afterwards and never get around to it. So set yourself a deadline. If you want to do something, put a big circle around the date in your diary, a big cross on your wall calendar. Tell colleagues or friends that you’re going to do it by 1 January next year or your birthday or your wedding anniversary. If it’s work-related, tell your boss that you’re going to do something by the end of the month, the next pay review, the next performance appraisal. Set a date and you’ll have to get it done.

Here are some examples of SPOT goals people have set themselves:

• ‘I will run a two-hour brainstorming session every quarter, starting at our away-day in June’ (for a Low-Inquisitiveness person).
• ‘I will ask for and gain written feedback from at least ten people by the end of this month’ (for a High-Resilience individual).
• ‘I will initiate contact and meet up with a colleague from another department for at least one coffee or lunch three days a week for the next month’ (for a Low-Affiliation person).
• ‘I will thank or praise or otherwise show my appreciation for at least one person every day. I will do this by speaking to someone face to face whenever possible’ (for a High-Drive person).

You get the idea. So let’s turn your top actions into SPOT goals. Rewrite them so that they’re specific and significant, positive, observable and timed.

• SPOT goal 1: .........................................................................................
• SPOT goal 2: .........................................................................................
• SPOT goal 3: .........................................................................................

ONWARDS AND UPWARDS

Congratulations! You’re on your way. You’re going to make the best of yourself. Now get out there and turn your actions into reality. Implement vigorously. Intentions are good, but doing is better.

You don’t lose weight by just reading a book on diet and exercise, you have to apply it. Same goes for this book. You now understand how to manage your personality, but you have to make it happen.

Change your behaviour on a daily basis, as many times as you can. If you keep repeating your actions, they eventually become second nature. Keep going and then keep going some more.

And once you’ve explored your own personality and mastered your distinctive assets? The journey doesn’t stop there. Think about the personality profiles of the people you work with or your loved ones. If you run a team, tailor your approach to capitalise on their individual strengths and you’ll watch them come alive and reach dizzying heights. Use the seven dimensions to understand how people think, what makes them tick, why you may sometimes clash and how to get the best out of them.

Remember, I’m a psychologist – I do this leadership coaching and high achievement stuff for a living. I see how individuals who understand and refine the dimensions of their personalities go to work with a grin on their faces and can’t help but succeed. I work with entire teams of people who learn the best ways to come together, play to their strengths and achieve their goals. So I know that you can make the best of yourself and the people around you too. This is your chance to learn, grow, improve and succeed. You can do it.