Any day is a great one to take a little time for self-reflection. Especially if this is something you haven’t done in a while, a personal self-assessment test is a great way to keep the knowledge of yourself current and may even provide you with an idea or spark that could change your life. These days access to great self-assessment tests has never been easier and these are a few of our favorites.

The Flower Diagram:

This great exercise from Dick Bolles’ What Color is Your Parachute? (It can also be found online) is perfect for a recent graduate, someone considering a career change, or anyone else looking to generally map out their lives for the future. The best characteristic of the exercise is that it helps you to identify your values and those you seek in a professional environment. It takes some time and is best worked on over a few sittings, but the Flower Diagram a very powerful and useful tool.

Jung/Myers-Briggs:

Probably the most popular and widely-used personality test around. After answering a series of questions you are assigned a four-letter personality type (No, FUCK is not an option). Depending on exactly what test you take the letters may vary, but generally they deal with how you learn, how you make decisions and how you perceive the world around you. Most everyone loves to hear themselves described, so many enjoy taking this test and learning the results.

CA Career Zone Self-Assessment:

This a short test that can be found at the CA Career Zone website. The assessment helps to identify what you want in a career and what you probably would do well, and as important, those fields that you probably would not do very well in. Knowing your limitations and weaknesses is just as important as knowing your strengths, especially in a professional setting. After you complete the test, a series of possible professions are offered and although some may seem comical, read through the entire list and we’ll be surprised if you don’t find one or two that seem a perfect fit.

Keirsey Temperament II Test:

Similar in structure to the Myers-Briggs, this great assessment available at Keirsey.com will put you into one of four groups; Guardian, Artisan, Idealist or Rational. This assessment we believe does the best job of informing a person what characteristics go along with their personality type. We were surprised how spot-on many of the descriptions were and highly recommend everyone take this test.

Creax Creativity Self-Assessment:

This test is very easy to complete, requiring approximately fifteen minutes. After filling out a very brief survey, you will be asked a series of questions about yourself. You are shown a line with a movable check to rate yourself from “A lot like me” to “Not like me at all”. The freedom this way of judging your personality allows is a nice touch.You are then asked a serious of random questions and finally given a creativity index score. The purpose of this test is not to say whether one is creative of not, but to tell what kind of creative you are. This great assessment can be located online at http://www.creax.com/csa/frame.asp?session=zero.

The overall lesson to be taken away from this article and these assessments is to know thyself. After much debate, we believe this may be the “meaning of life”. Without proper knowledge of one’s strengths and weaknesses, true brilliance in any form cannot be recognized. So take a few of these tests or find your own if you’d rather. The most important thing is spend some time looking within because at the end of the day, you’ve only got yourself.