Are you curious about your DIY personality traits? Here’s an overview of each personality type and how it applies to our DIY or creative sides. A melancholy temperament spends a lot of time in their heads, carefully researching and analyzing details, often making lists in teensy, tiny handwriting. Before making any decisions, they will make graphs and charts with layouts, furniture to scale, and they’re gonna know exactly what type of chair they need to fill a certain space. If you’ve watched the TV show monk, you will have a better understanding of the detailed mind of a melancholy temperament. The phlegmatic personality can truly go with the flow.
Partner with the phlegmatic. Like I have, if you want an easy going teammate who will let you take the reins on whatever style, colors or decor preferences you have, peace reigns supreme to a mild mannered phlegmatic. They will happily jump in to help run to the store 50 million jillion times to pick up items that if you’re saying when you probably forgot to get. Every team needs an easy going phlegmatic.
On the DIY project, the powerful choleric personality has a built in need to have control of any situation. They are task oriented, organized and often love a challenge such as a remodel or building a new home from the ground up. They are self starters and often prefer working by themselves or directing others on the job. If you want a DIY job done, give it to a cleric, which reminds me of a story.
My son’s father was a choleric melancholy, and he detested clutter of any kind, and including kitchen gadgets. Well, I loved creating colorful vignettes throughout our home, including on our kitchen counter and our cabinet tops. And he wanted clear countertops and I wanted a lot of pretty things to look at. We drove each other crazy. We would go to a hardware store together to pick out paint while he stood in front of the neutral shades, which means beige, pondering their miniscule differences. I was busy gathering arm loads of vividly colored paint chips. You know what? We’d always return home with paint chips and never the paint, not once. His melancholy side would never be able to decide between the 17 shades of off white he’d picked out. So therefore, nothing got painted. So I try to tell him it’s just paint. We can always change it if we don’t like it. No, I gotta think about it. Thinking about things is just really hard on a sanguine when you’ve got a plan and a bunch of colorful paint chips in your hands. So one day after repeating this same process again and coming home with only paint chips and nope, paint, my bold, sassy, sanguine teamed up with my competent get her done, choleric personality, and together we took the ball into our own hands. The next day, I brought home the brightest shade of Pepto Bismal pink paint that I could find and painted our entire bedroom with it. Okay, I admit that I may have had a little, just a little, just a little tiny bit of PMS maybe, but I don’t even really wanna blame it on PMS because I was genuinely frustrated at not being able to make a change in our decor by fling in some paint around.
Looking back, I can clearly see now how I could have compromised better and picked my battles more carefully. Hence, our divorce after nearly 20+ years of marriage. Understanding our personalities is key, whether it’s getting married, working with others or raising children. Better clarity on your own personality will help you see yourself clearer and those around you remember to look for your individual super powers that your personality needs to thrive and survive in life. And living for a sanguine. Make it fun for the melancholy, make it orderly for the clary. Give them choices. And for the phlegmatic, make it peaceful. Work with each other and not against each other. As my friend Ann says, teamwork doesn’t seem work. I studied under Florence Litauer in the late 80s. Great resource right here. Or you can see the full video over there. Thank you for watching. Have a sparkly kind of day wherever you are.