15 Powerful Self-Discovery Tools to Quench Your Soul Searching Thirst

Hey, soul searcher! Looking for self-discovery tools to support your soul-seeking journey? 

I spent a significant portion of my life lost. In retrospect, I felt like an alien trying to understand my personality, find my purpose, and make sense of the world. 

I was always curious about those who seemed to have it together and appeared to know themselves well. I, a tortured soul, was fated with an astonishingly drawn-out process of inner confusion. 

But the work pays off, and it is incredibly fulfilling when it all comes together and you begin to grasp yourself and settle in. I recommend self-discovery to anyone and everyone. So, enjoy the process. 

I compiled a mixture of self-study, popular personality tests, and a couple of esoteric modalities to help you gain self-knowledge. Here are 15 powerful self-discovery tools to know thyself. 

What is Self-Discovery?

Self-discovery is an ongoing process of self-exploration and self-examination to gain knowledge about oneself, including personality, temperament, and character. 

It involves uncovering your true self—deeper wants, needs, values, and beliefs—and finding your purpose. 

Remember that your personality is fluid. It changes, fluctuates, and evolves over time. It is recommended that you revisit a personality test from time to time, maybe every five years or so, to see if anything has changed. 

Additionally, don’t use personality tests to judge or define yourself. Labels, types, or scores are not set in stone and do not define you, so try not to become too attached to them or overly identified with them.

Rather, use them as an avenue to develop self-awareness and accelerate personal growth so that you can better navigate your life experience. 

15 Powerful Self-Discovery Tools

1. Enneagram Personality Test

The late Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson created the Enneagram personality test in 1997.

Enneagram comes from two Greek words: ennéa, meaning “nine,” and gramma, meaning “figure.”

The Enneagram System is rooted in ancient spiritual and mystical traditions, from Christianity to Taoism, the works of Pythagoras (Greek philosopher), and more. 

What makes the Enneagram unique is that instead of trying to understand how you act, the test focuses on why you act. It measures the motivations, core beliefs, and unconscious patterns that drive your behavior.

Surprisingly, the Enneagram System goes deeper than identifying your basic personality type. It also provides a 9-level development framework explaining each type’s unhealthy expression, moving to the highest expression of each type, and much more. 

Enneagram 9 Basic Personality Types:

• Type 1 The Reformer
• Type 2 The Helper
• Type 3 The Achiever
• Type 4 The Individualist
• Type 5 The Investigator
• Type 6 The Loyalist
• Type 7 The Enthusiast
• Type 8 The Challenger
• Type 9 The Peacemaker

Enneagram Test Recommendations:

• Free with Truity’s Enneagram Test to identify your type, and paid ($29) for an in-depth 18-page report. 
• $20 with Enneagram’s Official Type Indicator Test

2. The Flow Profile 

The Flow Profile, founded by Jamie Wheel and the Flow Genome Project, is a quick quiz that reveals the best way to get into the zone—or, in other words, the flow.

The Flow Genome Project describes the flow as “a peak performance state where we feel our best and perform our best.”

We are all unique, and an activity that uplifts one person may drain another person’s energy. We need different strategies to help us get into the zone. 

So, they’ve created four profiles to simplify it and help us understand ourselves more.

The Four Flow Profiles:

• Flow goer
• Crowd pleaser
• Hard charger
• Deep thinker

Time Length of Quiz: 10 questions, 5 minutes

Email Required: Yes, email and phone numbers are required to get a 10-page report, and No, to know your type.

Cost: Free

3. Meyers-Briggs (MBTI) Assessment

Meyers-Briggs (MBTI) is undoubtedly the most popular personality assessment, at least in the US. You’ve probably taken a version of it before online.

Meyers-Briggs is grounded in Jungian psychology and uses his theory of psychological archetypes as the foundational framework for understanding their 16 personality types.

They rate you on four dimensions, which live on a continuum, as seen below: 

At the end, you get a four-letter combination that looks like this: ENFP or ISTJ. 

They stress that no one type is better than the other but use their assessment to cultivate self-awareness, improve interpersonal relationships, and lead fulfilling lives.

MBTI Assessment Recommendations:

• $59.95 for Official MBTI Instrument Test
• Free with 16Personalities Test

4. The Big 5 Personality Test

D.W. Fiske originally developed the Big 5 Personality Test in 1949, and many other psychologists have since expanded on it. 

It is the test that most psychologists and academic researchers, including Jordan Peterson, adore because of its scientific validity, reliability, and precision. 

The Big 5 traits refer to what psychologists believe are the 5 core dimensions that form our personality.  The test measures cognition, which is how we think, and behavior, which is how we act. 

After the test, you get a score that rates each trait. The traits range from extremely low (0) to extremely high (100). The score gives you a percentage range in each dimension below.

The Big 5 Traits — OCEAN or CANOE:

• Openness
• Conscientiousness 
• Extroversion
• Agreeableness
• Neuroticism

It appears that the test is more of a fundamental personality test that helps create self-awareness as opposed to a test that focuses on a specific outcome (i.e., to develop better relationships or improve problem-solving skills at work). However, the understanding from the test should help you with all of the above.

The Big 5 Personality Test Recommendations:

• Free with the Science of People’s Big 5 Traits Test
• Free with Truity’s Big 5 Personality Test to know your range for each trait and $19 for an in-depth report

5. Clifton Strengths Assessment 

Don Clifton invented the CliftonStrengths assessment (formerly Clifton StrengthsFinder) in 1999 to help people identify their natural strengths and talents and capitalize on them in the workplace. 

Clifton said that most psychologists focus on finding people’s flaws and shortcomings. He believed that we should instead focus on developing our strengths. 

He categorizes human strengths into 34 themes. After taking the test, they give you your top five themes with suggestions and tips on how to improve your problem-solving skills, teamwork and collaboration, and leadership skills.

6. DISC Assessment Test

Psychologist William Moulton Marston originally created the DISC assessment test in 1928. 

It is a personality test that measures interpersonal behaviors focusing on work and career. The assessment helps you develop self-awareness and unlock strengths. It is particularly valuable for people who work in team-based settings and sales careers. 

They test you in four key areas — DISC:

• Dominance
• Influence
• Steadiness
• Conscientiousness

When you’re done, you get a report of your dominant type, such as (D) for dominance or a combination of (DI) for dominance and influence. 

DISC Assessment Recommendations:

Tony Robbins provides a comprehensive DISC assessment, which is free with email and an in-depth report.

7. The Emotional Index Quiz

The Emotional Index Quiz, created by Talane Miedaner of LifeCoach.com, is a valuable assessment that helps you understand your deeper emotional needs.

It is quite a lengthy quiz—100 questions long and approximately 20 minutes to take—but it is well worth taking time out of your schedule. 

Understanding your emotional needs is like learning what foods to eat to live a healthy lifestyle. Needs are food and nourishment for the soul. 

If we know our emotional needs, we can better care for ourselves, fill our own cups, and effectively communicate them in our relationships—raising our emotional intelligence and self-sufficiency. 

The quiz is free to take in exchange for your email. LifeCoach.com sends you a report pinpointing your top four needs, which you can use to improve your relationship with yourself and others. 

8. Relationship Attachment Style Test

Attachment Theory is a psychological theory that explores relating, bonding, and connecting patterns between people, particularly primary caregivers, and how these patterns influence our current relationships. 

Your attachment style will most definitely appear in your romantic relationships and can also impact your friendships and other social relationships.

The framework helps you understand your relating style, relationship security level, and behavioral patterns stemming from each style.  

There seem to be different models, but typically, attachment styles are divided into four groups:

• Secure
• Anxious (Preoccupied/Ambivalent)
• Avoidant (Dismissive) 
• Disorganized (Fearful Avoidant – vacillates between anxious and avoidant) 

Ideally, we all want to move to a secure attachment style. 

If you struggle in romantic relationships, this is a must to understand. Also, I’ve read somewhere that you cannot heal or change your relating style. This is not true. 

With work and focus, you can heal your bonding wounds, form a secure, healthy attachment style, and develop flourishing interpersonal skills—creating emotionally strong, resilient, and fulfilling bonds. 

Attachment Style Quiz Recommendations:

• Free attachment style quiz at The Attachment Project
• Free attachment-style quiz with Trauma Solutions by Dr. Diane Poole Heller. Her quiz gives a percentage range of each group that makes up your personality based on the questions answered. For example, 50% disorganized, 20% secure, and 30% anxious.

9. Try New Hobbies and Challenges

Trying new interests, such as exploring hobbies or signing up for challenges, is another effective method of discovering and learning more about yourself. 

Most creative disciplines encourage a nonjudgmental environment so that students can free themselves from the conscious mind. This allows them to explore their inner depths freely. With the right teacher and creative passion, you might discover things in yourself that you never knew were there. 

Additionally, signing up for challenges like running marathons can help you see how you respond to pressure. For example, do you procrastinate, have the propensity to let your fears take over, have a competitive spirit, are you disciplined, or do you just not show up?

However, don’t use your exploration to judge yourself; instead, use it to experiment and discover what’s happening internally.

10. The Five Love Languages

The Five Love Languages by marriage counselor Dr. Gary Chapman started as a simple self-help book that helped readers identify their primary love language, but has become a cultural phenomenon. 

He explains that while everyone has a combination of all five, we each will have a dominant love language. Each love language shows how we naturally express love and want to receive love from others. 

5 Love Languages:

• Quality time
• Acts of service
• Words of affirmation
• Receiving gifts
• Physical touch

You can use this knowledge to understand your love language and the love languages of others in your life. Understanding love languages can help strengthen your romantic relationship, make better interpersonal connections, and develop strong bonds. 

The Five Love Languages Recommendations:

• The Five Love Languages Book
• Free online The 5 Love Languages Quiz to learn your dominant love language, and paid ($39) for the full report.  

11. Self-Introspection 

Self-introspection is the tried-and-true old-school self-discovery method used since the beginning of time and will remain the most valuable. 

You can self-introspect in various ways, from mindfulness to journaling or meditation. 

I have a simple set of self-discovery journal prompts for beginners. It can help you get to know yourself better and practice honing in on your own internal guidance. You can also do a quick internet search for prompts from other teachers or self-discovery enthusiasts.

Doing journal prompts on a slow, relaxing day is a fantastic way to spend quality time with yourself and is always comforting. Can you guess my primary love language?

12. Speak with a Mental Health Professional 

If you use your time wisely, psychotherapy can be a profound tool for self-discovery. A trained professional can help you dig deep, uncover initial wounds, and get to the root of your problems. 

A good therapist should provide a safe space for you to get personal, raw, vulnerable, and honest. You’d likely talk to them about things your best friend won’t have the capacity for.

Therapy won’t solve everything for you, but with the right therapist coupled with your dedication, your sessions should facilitate healing and ignite immense personal growth.

13. Astrology

Astrology is a fantastic tool for self-discovery. And I’m not talking about your weekly fun horoscope—I’m talking about real astrology, which has many styles, such as Western Astrology, Vedic Astrology, Babylonian Astrology, and more. 

Most people consider astrology a predictive tool and a divination tool for fortune-telling, and it is. However, astrology is also a powerful healing tool that can lead to immense personal growth and self-acceptance.  

It’s not for everyone, similar to meeting someone, and for some reason, you don’t click with them, but your best friend does. It may be hard to understand why, but a responsible, ethical, and knowledgeable astrologer can most likely explain it.

Required: Exact time and date of birth and place of birth

Cost: Dependent on the reader

14. Try Shadow Work 

Shadow Work is another self-discovery method that can help you explore aspects of yourself that are not normally in your conscious awareness. 

Legendary Swiss psychologist Carl Jung coined the term “shadow.” The shadow is our psyche’s unconscious, hidden, and repressed part. It is any part of the self that we condemn, judge, criticize, fear, deny, suppress, reject, or abandon.

Shadow Work can appear scary, but it is actually quite a gentle and intimate process of learning more about yourself.

It can help you uncover the disowned and repressed parts of yourself and reveal hidden gems like gifts, talents, purpose, and dreams that you’ve carried within that you may not have allowed to actualize fully. 

It is a process of revealing, understanding, and integration. Although it can hurt along the way, ultimately, it should free you so that you can heal and become the wholeness you already are.  

If you want to get started with shadow work, I have 21 shadow work journal prompts for manifestation to get your feet wet. 

15. The Human Design System

Canadian Ra Uru Hu, born Alan Robert Krakower, created the Human Design System in 1987. Krakower shared that he had a mystical experience in which he heard “The Voice” for eight days and eight nights and received transmissions that formulated the system. 

Human Design blends ancient metaphysical divination systems worldwide, Western Astrology, the Hindu Brahmin Chakra System, the Tree of Life from the Zhar Kabbalist tradition, the Chinese I-Ching, quantum physics, and more. 

It is a robust, holistic self-knowledge system that aims to explain your unique, energetic blueprint. What makes it complex and different is that it doesn’t box you in. Meaning it’s not a predictive tool that tells you your fortune (i.e., you are meant to be a doctor). 

But it explores how your distinct energy blueprint is best suited to interact with the world.

It describes your energy and the environment that brings you most to life, allowing you to live in alignment with your true nature and find flow in life. 

Human Design practitioners describe the process as “remembering who you already are.”

Human Design Types: 

5 Strategy Types: how you use your energy to engage with the world

• Manifestors
• Generators
• manifesting generators
• Projectors
• reflectors 

7 Authority Types: how your body tells you if a decision is right for you

• Emotional
• Sacral
• Splenic
• Environmental
• Self-projected
• Lunar cycle
• Ego

Required: Exact time and date of birth and place of birth

Cost: Dependent on the reader

Closing Thoughts on Self-Discovery Tools

Phew, this was a long one. I’m glad you made it through. 

After writing this article, I realized that self-discovery is a form of self-intimacy, a way to spend quality time with yourself. The more you nurture and feed your soul, the more you will thrive and blossom. 

I hope I have provided you with a valuable resource of self-discovery tools. Choose one and get started. And don’t tell yourself that you don’t have time for yourself!

May you live well, and I wish you many blessings, love, and joy. Happy manifesting! 

You might also enjoy: 21 Common Limiting Beliefs That Block Manifestation