My Top 5 Strengths
- priscillawrites
- Feb 8, 2016
- 3 min read
I've been taking a leadership class at my church this past month, and it's been awesome. We started off by examining our personal identity because according to the book we've been reading, personal identity is the foundation of leadership (and I completely agree with that). In this journey of personal identity discovery we've also gotten to do one of my favorite things... personality tests! I am delighted by personality tests for some reason, and even though I took StrengthsFinder awhile ago, I still wanted to write about it today because it's always so relevant to my life.
If you've never heard of it, StrengthsFinder is basically a tool that helps you understand what you are naturally good at- and why you should focus on improving your strengths over improving your weaknesses. If you've never taken it, I strongly recommend you do (you can do that here). It will most likely confirm things you already suspected about your talents and help you identify your greatest potential for growth.
To give you a taste of how it works, I'm sharing my top five strengths today. They're so accurate for me, and I love that they help explain why I enjoy some of my favorite things so much.
Belief
The strength of Belief indicates that a person has deeply held beliefs that are true, unchanging, dependable and (usually) structured and interconnected. These values vary from one person to another, but ordinarily your Belief theme causes you to be family-oriented, altruistic, even spiritual, and to value responsibility and high ethics - both in yourself and others.
Includer
People with the StrengthsFinder them of Includer want to include people and make them feel a part of the group. To them, everything is about making the circle wider. The strength of Includer explains why people are drawn to those who are on the margins of society, or the individuals who seem to be left out. Includers have the highest capacity to build relational connections with people on the margins.
Connectedness
People with the StrengthsFinder theme of Connectedness believe that everything happens for a reason. They have the unique ability to ‘connect the dots’ between what is happening in the here and now with deep personal meaning. They are able to recognize instinctively that everything that happens is caused by something else. In this connection, people with Connectedness find meaning, purpose and deeper relationships.
Ideation
People with ideation are fascinated by ideas. They are delighted when they discover beneath the complex surface an elegantly simple concept to explain why things are the way they are. Their minds are always looking for connections, and are intrigued when seemingly disparate phenomena can be linked by an obscure connection. They derive a jolt of energy whenever a new idea occurs to them.
Empathy
People with the strength of Empathy sense the emotions of people around them. They have the unique ability to feel into the feelings of people around them. Not only that, they can sometimes take on those feelings of others. Therefore, they can anticipate the needs of others and provide help even before it is asked.
As we were discussing StrengthsFinder in class today, I started to make a list of activities that I'm passionate about - things that are so easy for me to focus on and that I truly enjoy. And every single one of them related back to these top 5 strengths, which I think is super neat.
If you're interested, you can read more about StrengthsFinder here. And if you already know your Top Strengths, share them with me in the comments! :)