How come that collecting is my strength, I wondered when I quickly glanced at the personalized report from Gallup Institute following the self-assessment test I made. I didn’t even realize that collecting items and storing all sorts of information can be anyone’s strength. I thought of collecting as causing lots of clutter and unsustainable activity.
The report opened my eyes and I dived deeper to see what else could I re-discover about myself.
It’s been an interesting journey of self-awareness since then. I am now consistently looking at myself or into myself through the lenses of StrengthsFinder themes. Using lenses was very familiar to me but only for my photography, now I apply them in everyday scenarios trying to capitalize on what’s best in me.
The report itself is based on the unique combination of my dominant characteristics, which I was aware of only to a certain degree. It helped me achieve more clarity around my qualities and not so much what things I am capable of doing but how I’m doing them. When you pair self-awareness with carefully crafted actions to improve your strengths they become your superpowers.
I lead with Strategic Thinking themes (hence the seeking and storing information) and they manifest out loud in my life. The Ideation theme, probably closest to the traditionally understood creativity is where I thrive. I am fascinated by ideas. As I enjoy looking at the world from different perspectives I’m often able to find connections between seemingly disparate things. It’s like a constant popcorn popper of ideas.
CCC
But Ideation theme is not purely creativity. It manifests itself in my life in 3 different ways or 3C if you will: creativity, complexity, and connectivity.
Creativity takes the form of either coming up with something new or changing what already exists. Complexity is the element I enjoy to tackle, sometimes just for the purpose to rival the puzzle while other times to make complex things more simple. In other words, I like challenging situations. Connectivity is something that works behind the scenes and is fed off of all the information stored in the CPU inside my head 😉 It helps me find a connection between seemingly disparate things.
One good example result of connectivity could be the cover of this page. While looking at my strengths diagram (below) I noticed a Tetris-like block. And I guess it’s not a far fetched analogy of strengths dynamic to Tetris game in which the elements interact with each other. The same way as the Tetris block fitting together is crucial for game success so is the interaction of multiple strengths working together.
The chart below shows the relative distribution of my unique CliftonStrengths 34 results across the four domains. These categories are a good starting point to examine where I have the most potential to perform with excellence and how I can best contribute to the lives of others.
According to the detailed report I lead with Strategic Thinking CliftonStrengths themes (Input, Ideation, Futuristic, Intellection, Learner in my top 10 themes).
