Finding My Strengths

So for the class I’m taking right now, 21^st Century Library Work Skills, thank you for asking, we are exploring our individual strengths.  It’s kinda like the different parts of our personalities that make us good at certain things.  The basis for learning this is to grow on what you are good at instead of focusing on your weaker aspects.  You can go so much further honing you strengths then trying to get your weaknesses to grow just as strong.  You’ll never get your weaknesses to grow past a certain point because talent in a certain area will help or prohibit this.  It’s like you can practice basketball till the cows come home, but if you don’t have the natural talent, you’ll never make it into the NBA.  Get it?  So for this week’s assignment we had to go on Strength Finders 2.0 and take a 30-minute test to determine what our top five strengths are.  Since I found this really interesting (and because I want to brag about myself) I decided to share this with you nice people who actually take the time to read my blogs.  After taking the Strength Finder Test, I was happy to find what my top five strengths are.  In ranking order they are Empathy, Intellection, Adaptability, Connectedness, and Learner.  That’s right bitches!  Intellection and Learner, and you all thought I was stupid. :P   I’m also actually really humble, but it didn’t pick that for me, so I feel I need to state that right now. Anywho’s here is a brief description of each area.

Empathy – With empathy, you basically try to put yourself in other people’s shoes to see how a situation affects them.  You can tune into other peoples emotions very easily and can sometimes even feel what they are feeling.  It is very centered around emotions and is not just about feeling bad for someone when they are down, you actually feel how they are feeling and can describe what they are going through as they go through it.  There is no judging in empathy, you can feel what someone is feeling and completely disagree with why they are feeling that way.  To me it’s kind of a respect thing; it goes back to the old adage “treat those as you would like to be treated”.  If you can truly live by those words, empathy will come easily to you.

Intellection – You would think that intellection is about being book smart, but that’s not exactly the best way to describe this strength.  Intellections like to think.  They are perfectly happy and content being alone with their thoughts.  Taking tests, polls, or solving problems for an intellection type personality is akin to exercises and training that athletes do to stay in shape and strengthen their skills.  It’s about pushing boundaries within yourself to see where your mind can take you.

Adaptability – Adaptability is about living in the moment.  You may think about the future, but planning for the future is not really your thing.  You take life one-step at a time and base your plans on what is going on at that moment.  You can understand that any plans you do make could and will change at any time and you are comfortable with that and expect it to happen.  You don’t necessarily make a list of goals for yourself because you prefer to focus on one thing at a time and then move on from there.  We do know that plans will change and we are pretty much ok with that.

Connectedness – With connectedness you are able to relate with all types of personalities.  You know that what you do can affect others and vice versa.  You have a belief in something spiritual that you know connects every living thing together on this earth into a whole.  It can, but doesn’t have to be a religious belief, that all depends on how you were raised.  You just know that you are a tiny little ant in the big scheme of things and there are things out there bigger then you, and you embrace that.  Connectedness is similar to empathy; they share some similar traits, such as being able to feel what others are feeling.  This helps bring people together and closes the gap that usually turns people away from getting to know other types of personalities.  You can usually get along with just about anybody because you are easily able to find ways to relate to other people.

Learner – A learner loves the process of getting to know as much information as possible about a subject that interests them.  We like to read and do research to expand our knowledge.  For a learner seeking knowledge is not about gain, we do it for ourselves because it makes us happy to learn new things.  Knowing nothing on a particular subject, to knowing everything there is to know on it, is a force that drives us.  It’s like if you were to go berry picking, the process of picking the berries and filling our basket is more exciting then the end result of having a basket full of berries.

I recommend taking the Strength Finder Test for anyone who is interested in this.  You do find out a lot about yourself that you never really took the time to discover before.  If anybody else has taken this, I’d be interested to know what results you got and if you agree with them.  Feel free to post a comment, I love a good debate! Now that I’m done patting myself on the back, I’m off to go watch some more 30 Rock. Laters!