________strawberries_

Monday, March 1, 2010

Strengthsquest.com:

Focus

Theme Description

“Where am I headed?” you ask yourself. You ask this question every day. Guided by this theme of Focus, you need a clear destination. Lacking one, your life and your work can quickly become frustrating. And so each year, each month, and even each week you set goals. These goals then serve as your compass, helping you determine priorities and make the necessary corrections to get back on course. Your Focus is powerful because it forces you to filter; you instinctively evaluate whether or not a particular action will help you move toward your goal. Those that don’t are ignored. In the end, then, your Focus forces you to be efficient. Naturally, the flip side of this is that it causes you to become impatient with delays, obstacles, and even tangents, no matter how intriguing they appear to be. This makes you an extremely valuable team member. When others start to wander down other avenues, you bring them back to the main road. Your Focus reminds everyone that if something is not helping you move toward your destination, then it is not important. And if it is not important, then it is not worth your time. You keep everyone on point.

Action Items

You can take a direction, follow through, and make the necessary corrections to stay on track.

You prioritize your life and tasks, and then take action.

You set goals that keep you effective and efficient.

You become frustrated when you when a group you are a part of doesn’t have clear goals or direction. Likewise, your life and work become frustrating when your goals are unclear.

Some of your greatest contribution as a team member might come as you help others set goals. When you work on group projects, take responsibility for summarizing what was decided, defining when these decisions will be acted upon, and setting a date when the group will reconvene.

Take the time to write down your goals and post them where you can refer to them often. You will feel more grounded and in control of your life when you keep your eye on the target.

Your powerful goal orientation could at times supersede your people orientation. Make sure the people you care about understand that you appreciate an opportunity for intense focus, but also that you are always happy to hear them knock on your door.

Partner with Ideation or Strategic talents before honing in on a goal, so you can gain confidence that your Focus talents are aimed in the most effective direction.

When given assignments, clarify timelines and expectations in advance. You become discontent with what you see as “busy work.”

You can spend long periods of time concentrating on one thing. This allows you to be highly productive, but can lead to even greater excellence if you set aside those periods of time intentionally and let others know why you’re doing that.

Use your focus to link class-related assignments to the knowledge and self-management skills you’ll need to be successful in your future career.

Use your focus to help groups stay on track in classroom discussions or meetings.

If you feel an assignment has no practical value to you, develop one that better fits your goals, and request permission from your professor to use it. Explain the potential benefits.

When working with others in a small group, help them see how the pieces of a project fit together to accomplish the overall objective.

Before studying, list everything you’ll attempt to learn during that time period.

Before writing a paper, outline the main points you plan to address.

Although you can concentrate for long periods of time, regulate yourself to avoid working to exhaustion.

Schedule your work in a way that allows you to focus your full attention on one assignment or project at a time.

Talk to two or three experienced people you admire. Determine some specific strengths they possess, and ask them about their greatest talents and the knowledge and skills they acquired through the years to create these strengths.

Choose to associate with successful people. Ask what they focused on to become successful.

Identify an alumnus who’s in a career that interests you, and spend time with that person to determine how he or she benefited from the college experience.

Select classes that will help you fulfill your long-term goals.

Select classes that have defined direction and objectives.

Choose professors who are known for staying on track.

Look for an internship in an area related to your career goals.

Select class-related and extra-curricular activities related to your career goals.

To build on your Focus talents and not “spread yourself too thin,” be selective in the range of activities you are involved in.

Set specific goals for your career planning. What do you want to achieve by the time you graduate? This attention to your destination and how you will get there will be very engaging and will provide great benefits.

Spend some dedicated time reading about careers that interest you and following up with internet searches. Your ability to concentrate on a task will stand you in good stead as you research career possibilities.

Although your Focus talents can reveal themselves through highly proactive goal setting, you might sometimes need to have a target identified for you.

You are capable of prolonged concentration and persistence, which flourishes in environments with few interruptions and little need to multi-task.

Structured environments that are predictable, detail-oriented, and reward your dependability and follow-through are likely to bring out your best.

You might be most satisfied in roles that have identifiable goals, purposes, and objectives, and that provide opportunities to meet your own longer-term goals.

Discipline

Theme Description

Your world needs to be predictable. It needs to be ordered and planned. So you instinctively impose structure on your world. You set up routines. You focus on timelines and deadlines. You break long-term projects into a series of specific short-term plans, and you work through each plan diligently. You are not necessarily neat and clean, but you do need precision. Faced with the inherent messiness of life, you want to feel in control. The routines, the timelines, the structure, all of these help create this feeling of control. Lacking this theme of Discipline, others may sometimes resent your need for order, but there need not be conflict. You must understand that not everyone feels your urge for predictability; they have other ways of getting things done. Likewise, you can help them understand and even appreciate your need for structure. Your dislike of surprises, your impatience with errors, your routines, and your detail orientation don’t need to be misinterpreted as controlling behaviors that box people in. Rather, these behaviors can be understood as your instinctive method for maintaining your progress and your productivity in the face of life’s many distractions.

Action Items

You find ways to organize yourself to get things done on time.

You tend to place yourself in productive environments.

You create order and structure where it is needed.

Some people may label you as compulsive, anal, or a control freak because of your ability to discipline yourself and structure your world. But these attributes make you productive — often more so than your critics.

Your role in any setting is often to provide structure and keep things organized.

Research new organizational or time-management systems. They can make you even more efficient and confident.

Create routines that make you follow through systematically. Share your reasons for those routines with other people.

Try to maintain a structured lifestyle. Find a place for everything. Keeping your personal space neat is something you do naturally, but don’t neglect it when you get stressed. It will serve to stabilize you when the pressure hits.

Time for planning is a key to your achievements. Honor this aspect of who you are rather than trying to “wing it” as some of your friends may encourage you to do.

Develop a calendar, and make things fit into it. Identify when and where to study and work. Have a time each day to go over your schedule for the next day.

Others may confuse your Discipline talents with rigidity. Be ready to explain to others how your structure and organization enable you to pack more effectiveness into your day.

Schedule all assignments, exams, and papers due for the term.

Clean and organize your living space before any major assignments are due or before an examination period.

If you are in a self-paced class or a class with minimal structure, develop your own structure to ensure that you meet the class requirements.

Don’t be afraid to color-code tasks on your calendar and your textbooks or notes. This will help you focus and prioritize what you are learning and doing.

Before starting papers, talk to instructors to find out what they expect and how they will grade the papers.

When you come across an unfamiliar word, finish the sentence, look the word up, then reread the sentence.

When preparing for a test, get organized. Collect all notes, have terms defined and facts highlighted and/or listed, and have possible questions available.

When you are working on a paper, it may be best to make an outline, breaking the topic down into parts that you can work on individually.

Use your discipline to stay ahead in reading assignments. Go over your lecture notes within 12 hours of taking them.

Make a list of all academic tasks that you need to complete for the day. Check items off as you complete them.

Find some friends who are as organized as you are. You will not disappoint each other.

Be the organizer for your friends, giving them friendly calls to remind them of when and where you are meeting for dinner, a movie, or other get-togethers.

Delight in a partnership of planning a trip or fun event with a friend. Write down each detail so that the event will meet expectations for both of you.

When choosing classes, arrange them in a way that allows studying during the times that you are more productive. Be realistic.

Give top priority to classes that you must take for graduation requirements or your major.

Choose professors who structure their courses and have clear expectations.

Volunteer to be a timekeeper for an event. Your accuracy will be appreciated.

Join a group in which you can use your organizational talents to help plan some major events, breaking down tasks to ensure that deadlines will be met.

Organize a monthly or quarterly “clean up” on your living floor, in which people clear away excess papers, files, clothing, etc. Play some music, and arrange to have food brought in to make the task more appealing and fun for others.

Collect all the information you might need about making a career choice. Use your natural discipline to organize it as you prepare to make a decision.

Lay out all the steps of the career planning process and follow them one by one. Put the steps on a timeline, as timelines often motivate you.

Environments in which you can maintain order for yourself and others will enable you to be most effective. Your organizational talents can be useful in a wide variety of settings.

Environments that are structured and detail-oriented, with clearly established routines and procedures, will likely bring out your best. Cluttered, unpredictable environments may not allow your Discipline talents to flourish.

Work that demands high levels of abstract thinking probably will not be comfortable for you. A daily routine and concrete expectations from others likely will enable you to be most productive.

Environments that value attention to detail and commitment to accuracy will be a good fit for you. Read about the work that air traffic controllers, brain surgeons, tax specialists, and executive assistants do.

Maximizer

Theme Description

Excellence, not average, is your measure. Taking something from below average to slightly above average takes a great deal of effort and in your opinion is not very rewarding. Transforming something strong into something superb takes just as much effort but is much more thrilling. Strengths, whether yours or someone else’s, fascinate you. Like a diver after pearls, you search them out, watching for the telltale signs of a strength. A glimpse of untutored excellence, rapid learning, a skill mastered without recourse to steps—all these are clues that a strength may be in play. And having found a strength, you feel compelled to nurture it, refine it, and stretch it toward excellence. You polish the pearl until it shines. This natural sorting of strengths means that others see you as discriminating. You choose to spend time with people who appreciate your particular strengths. Likewise, you are attracted to others who seem to have found and cultivated their own strengths. You tend to avoid those who want to fix you and make you well rounded. You don’t want to spend your life bemoaning what you lack. Rather, you want to capitalize on the gifts with which you are blessed. It’s more fun. It’s more productive. And, counterintuitively, it is more demanding.

Action Items

You see talents and strengths in others, sometimes before they do.

You love to help others become excited by the natural potential of their talents.

You have the capacity to see what people will do best and which jobs they will be good at. You can see how people’s talents match the tasks that must be completed.

Some people may see you as picky or plodding because they don’t understand your exceptional commitment to excellence.

You have a nose for excellence. This talent means you are able to give helpful input and advice about who does what well. In group assignments, your role may be to help the group capitalize on each person’s talents most effectively.

Seek opportunities to help other people succeed. Consider coaching your intramural team or volunteer to be a Big Brother or Big Sister. Your focus on talents will prove particularly beneficial. For example, because most people find it difficult to describe what they do best, start by arming them with vivid descriptions.

To maximize most effectively, focus on your greatest talents, as they are your best opportunities for strengths. Acquire and refine related skills. Gain relevant knowledge. Keep working toward strength in your areas of greatest potential.

Develop a plan to use your talents outside of academics. Consider how they relate to your mission in life and how they might benefit your family or the community.

Study success. Spend time with people whose talents you admire. The more you understand how talents lead to success, the more likely you will be to create success in your own life.

Be careful that your discriminating sense about excellent performance doesn’t extend to discrimination about people. Find the best within each person you encounter and let them know what you see.

Not everyone likes to hear how they can improve. Make the most of your Maximizer talents by giving people encouraging feedback before suggesting ways they could be even better.

Consider specialized programs that allow you to refine your talents.

Find mentors — and be one.

Study success. Find out what made famous scientists, historic figures, and great innovators successful. The greatest outcome of college can be your insights into what makes people, societies, cultures, and groups successful.

Select a college or university that offers leadership opportunities in which you can maximize the talents of others.

Read wherever you feel most comfortable — the library, the coffee shop, or home.

Discover your best way to learn, and stick to it.

Determine ways to manage any weaknesses in your study habits.

Study the most of what you do the best.

Make a point of helping your friends use their greatest talents to the fullest.

Help your friends recognize the talents and strengths in others.

Associate with people who appreciate your talents as well as their own.

Meet regularly with mentors and role models for insight, advice, and inspiration.

Pick elective courses that will provide opportunities to develop new strengths and hone your existing strengths.

Choose your major on the basis of your greatest talents and your personal mission. In what area of study do you have the greatest potential for strengths?

Seek classes taught by professors whose teaching styles best match the way you learn.

Find an internship or a job in which you can apply your greatest talents and your existing strengths.

Involve yourself in mentoring or tutoring.

Join organizations that have missions related to development.

Talk to your mentors about the career planning process. You will value their wisdom and expertise as you make decisions.

Interview people who are currently among the “best of the best” in jobs that interest you. Ask them what they find most rewarding about their work. Shadow them to see what they really do day in and day out. Notice the talents, knowledge, and skills that excellence in those roles requires.

You are someone for whom “talent talk” comes naturally — it’s the way you see the world as you capitalize on your own and others’ talents. Environments that encourage “best practices” and in which you can work collaboratively with others to continually improve the organization will allow your Maximizer talents to flourish.

Choose a workplace that is known for being among the best in its field. Workplaces with lesser standards probably would frustrate you.

Find work in which you can help others see their talents and how their talents make a difference.

Interview business leaders and athletic or executive coaches, and ask what they find most rewarding about their work. Find out how they bring out the best in others.

Significance

Theme Description

You want to be very significant in the eyes of other people. In the truest sense of the word you want to be recognized. You want to be heard. You want to stand out. You want to be known. In particular, you want to be known and appreciated for the unique strengths you bring. You feel a need to be admired as credible, professional, and successful. Likewise, you want to associate with others who are credible, professional, and successful. And if they aren’t, you will push them to achieve until they are. Or you will move on. An independent spirit, you want your work to be a way of life rather than a job, and in that work you want to be given free rein, the leeway to do things your way. Your yearnings feel intense to you, and you honor those yearnings. And so your life is filled with goals, achievements, or qualifications that you crave. Whatever your focus—and each person is distinct—your Significance theme will keep pulling you upward, away from the mediocre toward the exceptional. It is the theme that keeps you reaching.

Action Items

You probably enjoy receiving public recognition for the differences you make.

You want to have an impact on other people, groups, and society as a whole.

You want the contributions you make to be viewed as substantial, powerful, and significant.

Significance talents are sometimes perceived as egotism or a need for attention.

You probably are most engaged and effective when you have some sense of control and choice. Seek independent projects that give you freedom to excel.

Your reputation is important to you, so decide what you want it to be, and tend to it in the smallest detail. Identify and earn a designation that will add to your credibility, write an article for the campus newspaper that will give you visibility, or volunteer to speak in front of a group that will appreciate your achievements.

Identify your best moment of recognition or praise. What was it for? Who gave it to you? Who was the audience? What do you have to do to recreate that moment?

Being seen as credible, professional, and successful is important to you. Consider joining student organizations tied to your major. These can be opportunities to develop your credentials and professional expertise as you head into a career or to graduate school.

You value appreciation and affirmation. Tell the significant people in your life how important their feedback and support are to you. Their words can motivate you to even higher levels of achievement.

Be aware that you often want the significant people in your life to be proud of you. You enjoy the challenge of meeting others’ expectations. Share your dreams and goals with your family or closest friends. Their resulting expectations of you will keep you reaching for those dreams and goals.

Above all, you want to make your mark on the world. You deeply care about making a difference. Decide which actions are likely to have the most impact in an area you care about. Take risks and step into the spotlight.

Think about why a particular class is important to your future.

Identify three of your personal goals and connect them to your academic life.

Take control of your life, beginning with your education.

Create a list of goals that will bring you great satisfaction in your personal life. Then consider how college can help you reach those goals.

Take a leadership role in a study group.

Choose to study with other hard-charging classmates.

Establish relationships with your professors so they know who you are and of your interest in achieving.

Associate with professors and students whose interests and goals are similar to your own.

You want people to know who you are. Become friends with people in your classes by initiating conversations with them.

You want people to appreciate your work, but if appreciation is not shown, don’t give up. Work even harder.

Choose classes that offer you some independence.

Select classes relevant to your goals and desires.

Select classes in which you can be highly successful.

Take part in activities that display and make use of your confidence — make public appearances, climb mountains.

Run for an elected office.

Think about people you admire and what they have in common. Talk to them about the work they do and what they find rewarding about it. Ask them to give you feedback about your own goals and strategies for meeting them.

Significant people do significant things. Imagine the legacy you want to leave. Picture yourself at retirement, looking back on a life that has made the world a better place. What will you have you done to accomplish that?

Environments in which you and your significant contribution are visible to others and in which you receive recognition for a job well done are likely to bring out your best.

Knowing you’ve made a significant contribution is important to you. Volunteer in organizations where you can make that difference and where your efforts will be appreciated.

Seek opportunities to work with people you respect because they are professional, credible, and successful.

Environments in which you are given flexibility to do things your own way are likely to bring out your best.

Identify the specific talents that will help you make an extraordinary contribution to your workplace, and create opportunities to build on them.

Belief

Theme Description

If you possess a strong Belief theme, you have certain core values that are enduring. These values vary from one person to another, but ordinarily your Belief theme causes you to be family-oriented, altruistic, even spiritual, and to value responsibility and high ethics—both in yourself and others. These core values affect your behavior in many ways. They give your life meaning and satisfaction; in your view, success is more than money and prestige. They provide you with direction, guiding you through the temptations and distractions of life toward a consistent set of priorities. This consistency is the foundation for all your relationships. Your friends call you dependable. “I know where you stand,” they say. Your Belief makes you easy to trust. It also demands that you find work that meshes with your values. Your work must be meaningful; it must matter to you. And guided by your Belief theme it will matter only if it gives you a chance to live out your values.

Action Items

You have core values that are unchanging. You may conflict with people who oppose or don’t value your beliefs.

You have deeply held ideas about what is, what should be, and the purpose of your life.

You naturally become enthusiastic and energetic about tasks, roles, or positions that promote your deeply held beliefs.

Some people may think you are rigid or contrary because of your strongly held beliefs.

When you live your life according to your deepest values and beliefs, you experience motivation, drive, and determination.

Your energy comes from your sense of mission and purpose. Remember to connect the choices you make to the “why” so you will be fully committed.

Think about the values you cherish most. Continue to clarify them so you can communicate them better to others

To give voice to your values, partner with people who have exceptional talents in Communication or Woo. This approach will help others know who you are and how to relate to you.

Actively seek roles that fit your values. In particular, think about joining organizations that define their purposes by the contribution they make to society.

Listen closely to hear others’ values and beliefs. Tune in to those as ways of connecting with other people.

Consider defining your beliefs in more positive terms, focusing on what you are “for” rather than what you are “against.” This might help you be perceived in a more positive way.

Express your values outside of academics. Look to community service or volunteer work for opportunities that are a good fit with your value system.

Write an academic mission statement for yourself. Integrate your core values, such as a leaving the world better than you found it, curing AIDS, ending violence, or affirming the dignity of each human being.

Discover ways to weave your core values into routine classroom assignments. Write and speak about topics directly related to your beliefs.

Read about individuals who stood up for their convictions in the face of resistance. Determine who inspired these people to dedicate their lives to great and noble causes.

Debate an issue like: “Money is the true source of happiness.” Argue for and against this proposition. Ask yourself, “How was my position strengthened when I could incorporate my beliefs into the argument? How was my position weakened when I had to defend the opposing point of view?”

List your top three to five beliefs on a piece of paper you can use as a bookmark. Filter whatever you are reading and hearing through the lenses of these core values.

Assess whether you are allocating enough time to classes, projects, and assignments that add meaning to your life.

Suggest alternative topics for reading and research to your professors. Match your preferred assignments to one or more of your core values.

Form a study group of individuals with whom you share one or more important belief. Ask each member to describe how these core values contribute to his or her success as a student.

Tell your classmates and professors about the ideas, causes, and projects you are most passionate about.

Encourage others to tell you when your intensity inspires them and when it overwhelms them. Maintain an ongoing dialogue to ensure that they understand you.

State what you believe is right and wrong. Help others grasp what you value and why you value it.

Notice instances when you willingly inconvenienced yourself to come to the aid of a specific person or group. Ask, “Which of my core values drove this behavior?”

Enroll in ethics classes. Learn to evaluate the rightness of decisions in fields such as science, medicine, business, government, religion, and environmental protection.

Risk advocating your beliefs in class discussions as well as conversations with classmates and instructors.

Choose courses taught by professors known for their strong beliefs, even when their values clash with yours. Realize that considering the values of others can help you refine your own.

Select classes that challenge you to clarify, reinforce, defend, and live out the guiding principles of your life.

Figure out ways to spend quality time with your family. Make a point of going home or calling to show you are thinking of them on birthdays and special holidays.

Consider running for a campus office. Build your campaign platform on values-oriented issues that matter greatly to you. Inform potential voters about what you stand for and why.

Practice speaking a foreign language by helping a refugee family adapt to their new country and its customs.

Spend time thinking about your “calling.” Once you have articulated this mission, seek more information at the career center about careers that can help you fulfill it.

A mentoring relationship can provide a valuable way for you to gain insight into the fit between who you are and what you were meant to do with your life. Mentoring and being mentored increases the chances for your behaviors, decisions, and beliefs to remain congruent.

Environments that are a good fit with your own mission and beliefs will bring out your best. Seek employment in companies and organizations that exhibit a strong sense of mission — that is, a commitment to positively affecting the quality of people’s lives.

Research opportunities in helping professions such as medicine, law enforcement, social work, refugee relocation, teaching, ministry, and search-and-rescue. Talk with people who provide services to individuals in need. Interview those who supervise them.

Environments that are people-oriented, that provide service to others, or that reward personal growth are likely to allow your Belief talents to flourish.

Workplaces that respect your commitment to your family and allow for a balance between work and family demands will enable you to thrive.

Dora Chan ate a strawberry at 10:47 AM