Day 19 – Transition – Finding Strengths

One of the personality tests that I have taken is called Strength Finder 2.0.  It is a personality test disguised as a book.  The book cost about $20 bucks and comes with a code that allows you to take the test on line. 
I’m about as cheap as they come, so I tried to figure out how I could do this without parting with 20 dollars.  Used books and library books are out there, but they won’t give you access to the test unless the code envelope is still in tack and sealed.  In the end I ended up buying the book.
I enjoy personality tests because no matter whether good or bad; they end up telling you something about your self.  If they are bad they tell about your ability to be honest and realistic with yourself; you read the results and say this is crap, it doesn’t sound like me at all and you learn that this isn’t you.  If after two or three weeks of acting like a fool you decide that the test was wrong and that really wasn’t you after all, well, I would wonder about how honest and grounded I was being with myself in the first place. 
If the test is good, they have the ability to shine a light on something that you were not able to see in yourself or to give you deeper insight and ideas about aspects you realized but haven’t exploited fully.
The Strength Finder test is based on a 40 year research project done by Gallup Scientists on Human Strengths.  The book itself is 31 pages of explaining the test and the conceptual idea of the strength finder methods.  And then the rest of the book, another 140 pages, describes each of the 34 strengths and how to work with them.
When you take the test, a 20 page report is generated on your top strengths.  This report gives insights into each of your strengths and asks questions to get you thinking about how these strengths manifest in your particular case. 
My top 5 strengths are:

• Achiever
• Learner
• Intellection
• Connectedness
• Relator

These seem to match me well; I was much more saying to myself, yes I that does sound like me, rather than, that doesn’t sound right.  The trick is to take these standardized responses and then zero in to how these particular strengths show up in you and how do they blend together into that uniqueness that is you.   This is the part that enables self learning that can help going forward.
Yesterday, I read the Achiever section and thought about how this could help.  An Achiever needs to accomplish things, all the time, each and every day.  Without achievement, I can get depressed and will look for things that I can achieve (even if they are not in my priority areas or may lead my astray).  They secret lies in, these achievements don’t have to be huge things, small achievements and large achievements  score the same.   So having a lot of small achievements makes me a happier more content person.  And if I believe they are moving me in the right direction, I jump on them to get them done.
I have been using a internet software called Remember the Milk or RTM for paying attention to tasks.  I like this product because it integrates nicely with Google mail and Google calendar.  I’m bit apprehensive about it because if I want to get it on my Adroid phone they to charge my $25 yearly charge.
I have tasks for job hunting, exercising and maintaining the house.  As I start moving out on the house remodeling and the community bridge non-profit these will start showing up here also.  When I talk about getting improving my processes this is partly about making adjustments to when something is coming up in RTM.
Getting back to the Achiever strength, what I realized is that I should be putting more things, smaller tasks into RTM.  And when these get checked off, a little flash happens somewhere in my brain that says, achievement.  This is true about putting things on my Google calendar also.  Adding a time block on my calendar called searching for jobs that I can fit into is more satisfying than just doing the searching.  It sounds childish or trivial, but somehow knowing that I put time aside and then completing this part of the plan is makes me feel better.
Yesterday, I structured my day in my calendar, I added additional small jobs to my RTM.  And then I accomplished stuff and mark it complete in RTM and mentally checked it off. 
As an example, I changed the big overall task “read the Strength Finder sections”, since I had just read the Achiever section into the four tasks covering the four remaining sections.  This has been sitting on my tasks list for quite a while.  Now I only have three more sections to read.
I don’t think I got any more done, well maybe a little; but I felt like I got more accomplished yesterday then I had the whole time since the lay off.  This feeling was worth the $20 for the book and the test.
I will be looking at how I can incorporate what I learn back into my resume, thus creating a deeper link between my resume and what I need in my perfect job.