I love to learn and believed early on that if I were to cultivate my ability to understand the world by having a better sense of who and why I am, then I might be able to better serve the world at large. A test, even the same test a year part, can highlight changes and the growth we experience as we continue the journey.
From the Myers-Briggs (ENFP 2x and ENFJ most recently) to the Harry Potter’s Sorting Hat (Gryffindor) quiz, I’ve taken a number of personality assessments over the years. I recently made a year at my current job and was prompted to retake an assessment of character strengths from the VIA Institute on Character, which we took coincidentally around the time I started here.
Number one for me in both years was Spirituality. No surprises there as I’ve worked hard over the years to seamlessly integrate the spiritual side of life in a functional fashion throughout my life so this made a lot of sense to me. There were a few shakes up of what was in the middle but perhaps most hilarious, is that both years, 23 of 24 was Humor.
Despite Humor being my 23rd strength, I found that hilarious!
Like LOL - ROFL - LMAO - [insert lots of emojis here] funny. Probably because it’s true as I have often been accused and guilty as charged of being a serious person.
One of the best super small kid time stories my Mom has often told is after I was born, she held infant me, looked into my eyes, and wondered what was I thinking because of the focus she saw as I looked around at everything.
Oh, little did she know, that I’d grow to be a writer, finding more and more ways to publish and share my thoughts and views. Speaking of which:
Something that was shared about this process when we first took this test last year, was rather than think about weaknesses as areas to work on, we should lean into our strengths.
It was fitting then that spirituality remained atop the National Coaches Poll, no wait that’s College Football. I would speculate that would also be why some of the other areas, such as Love and Gratitude, shifted higher as I worked on growing and leaning into expressing more Love and Gratitude as I’ve worked through managing my experiences with grief, stress, anxiety, and depression.
In my last therapy session, my doctor told me that “You’re going to be alright, you’re going to get there, you can achieve whatever you want and will be successful” in reference to continuing to focus and grow holistically (including finance) healthy. I paused because it made me think of something a former boss shared, which was very similar, save that she added “you just need more water beneath you,” a thought I have never really gotten but as I wrote this out made me think of a rising tide. Similar to leaning into strengths, my therapist pointed out that we should lead into what we do well. Her point being that we focus so much on mistakes, as opposed to what we did well.
I’ve long thought how just as there is night, day will follow, and the tides rise and fall as they do. Both necessary. All beautiful.
There’s an ebb and flow, a balance that plays out in our lives. If you pause to watch Nature long enough, not only can this dance be seed and heard, but it can be felt. Pay attention long enough and we can even sense ahead.
And there’s a beauty to being so in tune, another facet of this whole quest for deeper awareness, I cultivate with each new day that I am gifted.
LOL - The Appreciation of Beauty (even in “everyday experience”) was my #2 strength. Well to Love, Gratitude, and Beauty in the All of It, let’s go!