Finding Strength

I just got home from an inspiring afternoon with two amazing powermoms and friends.  The purpose of our meeting?  Going over our Strengths Finder 2.0 results and discussing some action steps we can take to capitalize on our newly identified strengths.  My friend and business partner Marilyn is an amazing leader (in SF2 terms, a Maximizer) and put together a full training for us to deeply consider and analyze our test results and open a dialogue about this type of strengths testing.

SF2 is a quiz – yes, one you can easily take online for the low low price of $14 – that helps you identify thematic areas of strength in your personality, work ethic, and interpersonal life.  The book is based on the “strengths psychology” of the late Dr. Donald O. Clifton, which can be summarized as this: exploit your strengths; ignore your weaknesses.

At first this seems startling, since most of us (and especially us women) are constantly being told to work on our weaknesses and “tone down” our strengths (particularly if our strengths are traditionally considered masculine, such as Competition or Self-Assurance).  

Strengths psychology, on the other hand, asks us to consider what we are best at – what are our dominant talents – and develop plans to use our strengths to better our daily lives, align our strengths with our passions, and make changes to our lives to allow our strengths to shine and our weaknesses to…well, not matter so much.

While I encourage you to purchase the book and take the quiz yourself (and no, this is not a “sponsored” post – I’m not that famous of a blogger yet, haha), I want to share my five thematic strengths in hopes that it will inspire you to start a dialogue with me about yours – and how they figure into your work, personal, and aspirational life.

So who is ThisFitBlonde?  Apparently I am a/an:

Achiever.  Has a great deal of stamina and likes to work hard.  Gets satisfaction from being busy and productive.

Activator.  Can make things happen and turn thoughts into action; often impatient when decisions aren’t being made.

Learner.  Wants to continuously learn new things, enjoying process over outcome.

Relator.  Enjoys close relationships with others.  Likes to work hard with friends to achieve common goals.

Positivity.  Has an enthusiasm that is contagious.  Is upbeat and can get others excited about what they are doing.

When I took the test and received my results, I immediately thought “Yes!  This is so me!”  The hard part, of course, is thinking about your natural aptitudes and how they relate to career goals – which is something I’m still figuring out.  

Being a trainer allows me to be a Relator on a daily basis; I infuse my work with a great deal of Positivity as well.  I live and die by my to-do lists and am constantly taking steps to Achieve my next goal (even if it’s as simple as getting laundry and grocery shopping done in the same day) and being an Activator through my decisiveness and can-do attitude.  And while I fancy myself a lifelong Learner, doing the Strengths Finder 2.0 made me realize how much I am not quenching my thirst for new knowledge, and this is probably one of the main reasons I started this blog – to learn a new skill, synthesize information, and commit myself to writing each day.

Have you ever taken an aptitude/personality test like this before?  What did it reveal to you about yourself?