My Personality Is Holding Me Back

My personality is what is holding me back. Primarily, I seem to be low in conscientiousness. That's the main culprit.

I've taken two different personality tests online and the results are generally the same with some variation that probably more to do with how questions are phrased and how I'm feeling about myself at that particular moment.

The way these tests work is by presenting you with a series of statements which you basically rate from "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree". Mathematically, I imagine the way this works is as follows:

Strongly Disagree - 1

Disagree - 2

Neutral - 3

Agree - 4

Strongly Agree - 5

Answers are scored something like the above, though I think in some cases the values associated with answers are reversed, so a "Strongly Disagree" answer might result in a 5 instead of a one. It just has to do with how the statements are phrased. I imagine they do that to try and keep people honest. 

The tests are an attempt to measure where we stand in terms of the Big 5 personality traits, sometimes referred to as the "Big 5 Inventory".

Here are the 5 traits and how I generally score for each:

Openness - Middle to Above Average

Agreeableness - High

Extraversion - Very Low

Concientiousness - Middle to Below Average

Neuroticism - High

So basically, I'm a somewhat intellectual and imaginative neurotic introvert that's nonetheless easy to get along with, but lacks a super-strong work ethic. 

That last part is the real killer I think, just in terms of career. I KNOW, that I do not have a strong inherent work ethic. I'm not high energy. I don't feel driven to get things done - most of the time. There are occasional exceptions to that, but generally that's the case. 

One of the ways that I've dealt with this over the years is by performing well under pressure. This isn't always pleasant, of course. When the pressure is something I create for myself by procrastinating on a task (like creating a PowerPoint deck), the usual result is that the time I spend not doing that task is time spent in misery and dread. 

But there are other pressure situations that actually are kind of fun. Working on a project with other people is one of those situations.