Live a Strong Life:
The Strength Finder Test
Strength finder is a fantastic tool to identify your unique strengths. The philosophy is your best skills, knowledge and talents will take you farthest in life. When applying your strengths, you should take some time to reflect on what you’re good. However, people may need an outside viewpoint for ideas.
Therefore resources, such as a skill assessment tool may help you to clarify the basic life skills that you are good at. One of the ways that helped and reaffirmed my career path is the book, “Now, Discover Your Strengths.” The book Strength Finder 2.0 is the same test, with a few more features.
It’s become quite a “movement” lately in the corporate world (even my company is handing out those books now). What makes it unique, opposed to personality tests, IQ tests is that it created a test to identify 33 different "strength finder" profiles.
Achiever Activator Adaptability Analytical Arranger Belief Command Communication Competition Connectedness Consistency Context Deliberative Discipline Empathy Focus Futuristic Harmony Ideation Includer Individualization Input Intellection Learner Maximizer Positivity Relator Responsibility Restorative Self-Assurance Significance Strategic Woo
I took this test several years ago. The results from my strengths assessment are as follows:
- Woo – Which stands for “winning others over”, which enjoys initiating contact with strangers.
- Learner – enjoys constant learning, the outcome isn’t as important as the learning process.
- Communication – enjoys speaking, explaining and bringing ideas to life.
- Relator – enjoys deep connecting relationships and wants to understand people’s dreams, goals and feelings.
- Inclusiveness – wants to include as many people to be in the group as possible.
My Story
I was not surprised at results I got. As you can see all of the strengths listed are regarded as fundamental skills. You can break 4 of the skills into people skills, and learning skills. As a software architect (my current day job) it seems odd to be paired up with these strengths listed above considering that 4 of 5 of my strengths are people related.
Here’s the deal, I absolutely LOVE to learn, for as long as I can remember I loved new ideas. That’s what kept me going in the ever changing technology field. However, I was not fully applying my strengths. Which is one of the reasons I’m working on this website to share my ideas and initiate contact with complete strangers.
In high school I took my required speech class (I was quite shy at the time, after all I was the only deaf student in the class). But when I got up in front of the room, the fear of boring my audience was a stronger fear than public speaking, so I just “lit up”. I don’t know why, but I just loved to entertain people and was not afraid to get in front of people. That’s why I know it’s a true strength.
Another quick story, when I was in 2nd grade we were all asked to write a book. Back then I didn’t question, I just did it. That book was actually a competition for each district and I won first place in my district and grade level. I look back at that book and in a way I can’t believe I actually wrote that book. So, I was really able to link this book to my past in a different way.
So, what skills should YOU develop or strengthen? If you’re at a loss, check out the Strength Finder book. It seemed to be clear for other people as well as myself. Once you find your strengths find the necessary skills that apply to those strengths, you may surprise yourself, for it may be like “releasing the brakes” in your life.
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