Have you ever completed the StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment? I highly recommend it. Understanding your results can help you in many different areas of life.
When you buy the book, it comes with a code to complete the online assessment. Upon completion of the assessment, it will give you a list of your top five strengths.
I must be honest though: when I read my list of strengths, I was a bit perplexed. My top strength is Strategic. I’d never use that word to describe myself, how could it be my top strength?
But as I read the personalized report that came with the list of strengths, I saw that it was me to a T. This personalized report and your list of strengths are very insightful and intuitive. Once I read through the document, I felt some extra confidence. I previously believed people saw the world and acted and thought just like I did. I thought how I operated was typical of everyone else. The StrengthsFinder report helped me to see that I have unique areas of strength.
Knowing your strengths is not only helpful for the workplace, but it’s also helpful at home. If we live out of our strengths and stop beating ourselves up about our weaknesses, we’ll be more confident people and parents, which will greatly benefit our families.
Understanding your own strengths will likely prompt you to be curious about the strengths of your spouse and your kids. When you understand each other’s strengths, it makes your team stronger. You can celebrate each other’s strengths. You can ask for help from a family member who has a strength in an area you do not. It’s truly a win-win for everyone! (If your kids are young, it’s probably premature to have them take the assessment, but you can flip through the book and become familiar with different strengths. Then observe your kids and encourage them in the areas where they’re strong.)
Accepting our weaknesses is also a piece of the puzzle. It’s okay if you’re not a crafty mom or a sports-guy dad. It’s okay. Sure, we can still try those things for our kids, but we don’t have to feel any pressure to change or feel guilty that we don’t excel in those areas. We can make peace with it and focus on the ways we are strong. Modeling this for our children will help them as they grow up.
As people and parents, it’s much more productive for us to focus on our strengths and live out of them. When we focus on our weaknesses or compare ourselves to the strengths of others, it makes us feel defeated. When we live out of our strengths, we’ll feel more confident to be the person and parent God made us to be.
I believe self-discovery is an important piece of helping ourselves to be a better parent. In addition to the Strengths-Finder 2.0 assessment, I also recommend these others:
- unNatural Mom by Hettie Britz: When you purchase the book, you receive a code to the online assessment.
- 16 personalities/Meyers-Briggs
- True Colors
- Enneagram: I’ve yet to take this one, but it’s been all the rage on several podcasts I listen to.
Have you taken any of these assessments? How have they helped you to become a better person and parent?