Top 5 Strengths

Most of you know I’m a bit of personality test/survey guy. I have a need to totally understand my world, my past, present and future as well as just what makes me tick. Other than common assessments such as the Myers-Briggs inventory, it had been awhile since I had tried something new. As mentioned in my previous post, my Thursday night small group through Mosaic is on hiatus for the month of March as we are going through a course in Pasadena based on the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment. In preparation for yesterday’s class I took the online assessment to see where I fit in. It’s a 177 question assessment where you only have 20 seconds per question as they go on the (probably correct) notion that your initial response will most likely be the most accurate. After the assessment is over, there’s some crazy algorithm that figures out your top 5 strengths (out of a possible 34) with detailed descriptions. Out of this the idea is that by knowing your top 5 strengths, you can see the most growth by focusing primarily on those areas while concurrently shoring up your weaknesses. Anyway, with all that said, here are my top five strength themes (with brief explanation) in descending order…

5). Connectedness: People strong in the Connectedness theme have faith in the links between all things. They believe there are few coincidences and that almost every event has a reason.

Yes…I’m always looking for connections in my world how the things I have gone through have made sense, although it’s a double edge sword as I have some big-ish stuff that I still don’t see understandable connections for so it’s not all sunshine and flowers but definitely one of the ways in which I operate. This then also goes hand-in-hand with past blog posts on synchronicity and how, at times, my life just lines up perfectly.

4). Intellection: People strong in the Intellection theme are characterized by their intellectual activity. They are introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions.

I suppose this is self explanatory…although to expand from the full description given in the assessment something that popped out to me is that those who have this theme can become disheartened and disappointed between the thoughts and ideas conceived and the reality set before them. For me I have to temper these things and understand that I can’t do everything and that sometimes crappy situations result from things outside my control. Not that I am a control freak but I know I have the tendency to blame everything bad on myself and not take some situations as that they might be due to other factors.

3). Belief: People strong in the Belief theme have certain core values that are unchanging. Out of these values emerges a defined purpose for their life.

Yes, this is very true and it does go well with the last point I made on Intellection. For me, I have certain defined purposes that have become lodged in my brain (how I can affect the world positively, living said life with a partner, etc.) and I find myself getting very frustrated because I feel like I’m not living out all my purposes despite my best efforts. On the plus side, it does mean that you know what you’re going to get from me. Out of these convictions I’m about as steady as one can be and those in my life do not have to worry that I’m suddenly going to change who I am and what I’m all about.

2). Harmony: People strong in the Harmony theme look for consensus. They don't enjoy conflict; rather, they seek areas of agreement.

On the front, this is very much me. I HATE conflicts, disagreements and the like and I get totally bent out of shape when I’m in the middle of them. I really strive for harmony and situations or relationships where I feel disharmony has become a centerpiece rip me up internally. Now I did say “on the front” simply because in discussion last night about this theme, the facilitator mentioned that even though it is harmony, most people with this theme hate disharmony so much that they will, more often than not, get in the middle of conflict knowing that by doing so harmony can be restored. Yes, this might be true but whenever I’m in those situations my brain leaks all over the place and I don’t do well at all usually.

1). Input: People strong in the Input theme have a craving to know more. Often they like to collect and archive all kinds of information.

HAHAHAHAHAHA! Yeah…pretty much. It was described last night that people with this theme are sometimes seen as having gigantic mental catalogs of information they have stored away for use throughout a variety of situations. Now I’ve always described this as, “I’m a fount of useless information” but this sounds better. The more detailed description also states that those with this theme have a wide range of interests because they find so much of life interesting. I suppose that’s one of the reasons why I can go from sports to theology to music to relationships to whatever the way I do because I really am interested in much so this does fit.

Anyway, I just thought I would share a little of what I’ve learned about myself so far in this process (two more class meetings to go) as it’s been somewhat eye opening.