Seven personalities?!  You’re probably asking, “What’s that? I thought we just went through this binary description of being either an introvert or an extrovert.”

You are a unique and multifaceted individual, not a monolithic personality. If you’ve ever had a tough decision to make and found yourself saying, well, part of me wants this and part of me wants that, then you know what I mean. I have created this little thought exercise to help you understand the many facets of your personality that together fully express who you are. It is adapted from a goal setting exercise from Steve Pavlina’s blog Personal Development for Smart People.  

For decision-making purposes, it can be helpful to think of yourself as a cast of characters. I know it’s a little freaky to think of yourself as seven different people, but we are not talking split personalities here.  Instead, this is a way to uncover and explore the many different parts of your personality that make you YOU.

The challenge is to find seven personalities that describe you, but they must be as orthogonal to one another (that means have the least overlap) as possible. This cast of seven will capture your unique complexity.  

As an example, here is my set:  

1. The Student: needs learning and constant intellectual stimulation, is growth-oriented
2. The Go-Getter: gets things done, is an achiever
3. The Connector: seeks a sense of deep connection, also wants to help others find connections, such as with matchmaking, recruiting, introducing friends to one another.  
4. The Free Spirit: is care-free, enjoys adventures, like mischief
5. The Roman: enjoys sensory indulgence, such as with food, wine, and dance.
6. The Designer: has a strong sense of aesthetics and strong sense of design, whether it be in art, math, or coaching.
7. The Positive Force: likes doing good and helping; has a strong focus on positivity in everything.  

A lot of my life and career choices trace back to one or a combination of these sub-personalities.  When I was in graduate school, doing academic research in artificial intelligence, the dominant personalities were The Student and The Go-Getter  Together, they were a powerful combo that silenced most of the other personalities. My Connector was very frustrated because doing academic research can be very lonely and isolating.  I oscillated between being intellectually stimulated by cool concepts in AI and feeling lonely and down because I was spending too much time by myself. That’s what happens when your sub-personalities are not working in synchrony.

To begin, think to yourself not “What do you want”?  But rather think, “What do ALL of YOU want?” This way you can break down the different aspects of yourself into seven characters.

You can make up any name for your characters, but if, for example, you have “Explorer” as well as “Pioneer” in there, there could be an overlap in meaning and intention—both are drawn to novelty and newness, though slightly differently.  Instead, choose one or change the name to The Exploring Pioneer to capture all those qualities and then find another character, like The Organizer.

Additionally, when you work out theses characters, they should represent themes that are pretty persistent throughout your life and manifest themselves in different areas of your life: work, play, relationships.  Looking back, you see traces of them as early as childhood.

Here are a couple of tips when it comes to finding your sub-personalities.  As a rule of thumb, keep it between five and seven. Too few, you may not capture enough of your richness. Too many, they stop being helpful as a decision-making tool because you can’t even remember them all.  

Also, give them expressive names that really capture the feeling.  At first, I named the indulgent part of myself The Hedonist, but it didn’t feel right because the word has too much negative connotation.  When I finally decided upon The Roman, it was perfect! I pictured this an ancient Roman reclining on a chaise lounge eating grapes. It captured the essence of what I wanted to express.  I found that in my stressful corporate jobs when I also had a young child to raise, the Roman was kicked to the curb. There was no time to indulge or relax. Even then, I strategized and found ways to indulge my senses.  

When one or more of your sub-personalities are suppressed for too long, your energy drains and it becomes hard to achieve your goals. Those sub-personalities start to sabotage you subconsciously just to gain some attention and control.  The reason to make them explicit is so that you can negotiate and create more win-win situations and find synergies.  For example, maybe my Go-Getter character is working hard to create a career talk, but if I can deliver it at a conference in Italy, my Roman will be happy too.  
Just to get your mind moving, I attached a list of random names I collected over the years.  You by no means have to pick off of this list.  But it could be quick way to jump start the casting call.  It takes some time to re-jigger the cast to get it to feel right, so don’t feel you have to find your perfect seven all at once.

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