As I was organizing my office, I found my Clifton Strengths assessment that I took years ago. It was interesting to reread and be reminded of my strengths, especially at the beginning of a new year when all of the messages we hear are focused on what we need to fix rather than building on what we already have present within us.
Clifton Strengths measures your specific order of 34 CliftonStrengths themes. It explains the unique ways you accomplish your goals by building relationships, thinking strategically, executing plans and influencing others. My top five themes are strategic, achiever, connectedness, belief and empathy.
Our natural inclination is to breeze by our strengths thinking we’re done and move on to improving our weaknesses. Annual performance reviews focus on “fixing” people rather than taking advantage of their strengths, building diverse teams and encouraging mastery through deliberate practice.
“From this point of view, to avoid your strengths and to focus on your weaknesses isn't a sign of diligent humility. It is almost irresponsible. By contrast the most responsible, the most challenging, and, in the sense of being true to yourself, the most honorable thing to do is face up to the strength potential inherent in your talents and then find ways to realize it,” stated Donald O. Clifton, psychologist, researcher and founder of the Clifton Strength methodology.
Through my career, I’ve taken many different assessments including the Myers Briggs, Insights Discovery® and Predictive Index®. Assessments can be useful to gain self-awareness and should be used as a floor rather than a ceiling, a framework rather than concrete. With a growth mindset, we believe in our capacity to evolve, change and be transformed into our best selves with attention, focus and effort.
Self-awareness is the first domain on the road to emotional intelligence as defined by Daniel Goleman and Richard E. Boyatzis. Once we get past self-awareness, we can move into the more interesting, complex and fulfilling domains and competencies of self-management (emotional self-control, adaptability, achievement orientation, positive outlook), social awareness (empathy, organizational awareness) and relationship management (influence, coach and mentor, conflict management, teamwork, inspirational leadership).
An assessment is a starting point to gain insight into your strengths so you can proactively and productively reach your goals, pursue your passions and fulfill your purpose.
If you’ve strayed off of your resolutions, start again with a new mindset. Change them to commitments, defined by specific daily action and measured for accountability and progress. Reframe and restart from a place of abundance rather than scarcity, from strength rather than weakness, from the long-cut path rather than the time-wasting short-cut schemes. There are no real shortcuts to meaningful results. Start where you are today and get on the beautiful winding journey that is worthy of your full attention, enthusiasm and best effort.
This year, I am going to be focusing my time, effort and attention on playing to my strengths of strategic, achiever, connectedness, belief and empathy.
Take inventory, celebrate your wins and play to your strengths.