A Moment of Introspection

Tonight I am going to do something that is pretty rare for me. I'm going to share some personal information in a rare moment of introspection...while I still have the presence of mind to do so. :)

For the past two months, I have been participating in a class at church called "Discovering Your Unique Design." We have taken several different personality/spiritual assessments which help us to determine what our strengths and weaknesses are. The goal of the class is to learn about ourselves and learn how to improve on both our strengths and weaknesses, to maximize our potential in our home, work, and especially in ministry.

Because blogs are more fun with pictures...here's my notebook from the class :)

We have learned about our Motivational/Spirtual gifts, Meyers Briggs Preferences, Conflict Resolution styles, and Gallups StrengthsFinder Themes. A couple of things that I have found very interesting up to this point, although they came with very little surprise, are that I am an introvert, and that my conflict resolution style is avoidance. Introversion in this sense means that when I am overwhelmed or at the end of my rope, I recharge my batteries by spending time alone. Like I said, neither of these things necessarily surprised me, however they definitely gave me a lot to think about.

Right now, we are working our way through the Gallups StrengthsFinder themes. This has been my favorite part of the course so far, and I thought I would share my top five themes with you.

1. Deliberative - You are careful. You are a private person. You know that the world is an unpredictable place. You are a fairly serious person who approaches life with a certain reserve. You select your friends cautiously and keep your own counsel when the conversation turns to personal matters. You are careful not to give too much praise and recognition, lest it be misconstrued. Life is something of a minefield. You identify the dangers, weigh their relative impact, and then place your feet deliberately. You walk with care.
2. Adaptability - You live in the moment. You don't see the future as a fixed destination. Instead, you see it as a place that you create out of the choices that you make right now. This doesn't mean you don't have plans. But adaptability enables you to respond willingly to the demands of the moment even if they pull you away from your plans. You are, at heart, a very flexible person who can stay productive when the demands of work are pulling you in many different directions at once.
3. Harmony - You look for areas of agreement. In your view there is little to be gained from conflict and friction. You try to steer people with differing views away from confrontation and toward harmony. You can't quite believe how much time is wasted by people trying to impose their views on others. When people start to argue about their pet theory or concept, you steer clear of the debate, preferring to talk about practical, down-to-earth matters on which you can all agree.
4. Restorative - You love to solve problems. You may prefer practical problems or conceptual ones or personal ones. You enjoy bringing things back to life. You may seek out specific kinds of problems that you have met many times before, or feel the greatest push when faced with unfamiliar problem. But what is certain is that you enjoy bringing things back to life. It is a wonderful feeling to identify the undermining factors, eradicate them, and restore something to its true glory.
5. Intellection - You like to think. You like mental activity. This need for mental activity may be focused, like trying to understand another's feelings, or unfocused. You are the kind of person who enjoys your time alone because it is your time for musing and reflection. You are introspective. This introspection may lead you to a slight sense of discontent as you compare what you are actually doing with all the thoughts and ideas that your mind conceives. Or this introspection may tend toward more pragmatic matters such as the events of the day or a conversation that you plan to have later. This mental hum is one of the constants of your life.

I think my favorite part of this particular assessment is that it focuses on strengths instead of weaknesses. It specifically tells us what we are good at, and encourages us to nurture and improve upon those things even more. Good stuff. I am also enjoying seeing how my results from the different assessments work together and create my ultimate personality profile.

If there's anyone who made it to the end of this blog, congratulations. Or should I say thank you? Obviously you are interested in learning more about me. Any observations from what I've revealed about myself?