What Is Your Focus?

Recently a friend suggested that I purchase the book Now, Discover Your Strengths so that I could get a code to take the Gallup's Strength's Finder profile survey. This is also available from the book Strength's Finder 2.0. I found the survey and the results extraordinary. I could not believe that they were able to understand the real me so much.

The main emphasis of the Strength's Finder surveys is that we need to focus more on our strengths because those are the areas in which we do our best and enjoy ourselves more. They do not trying to de-emphasize building up your areas of weakness, but try to explain that you will always feel frustrated if you are not allowed to work in areas that utilize your strengths.

My personal strengths turned out to be:

  • Strategic - I can sort through the clutter and find the best route
  • Responsibility - I take psychological ownership for anything I commit to do
  • Self-Assurance - I have faith in my strengths and my judgment
  • Input - I am inquisitive and collect information for use at the right time
  • Achiever - I am driven to complete goals and must achieve something tangible each day to feel good about myself

I have also taken other similar profile surveys. One that I taught to several small groups was the Uniquely You's Discover Your Giftedness which helps you to understand your personality profile (using the DISC behavior survey) as well as spiritual gifts. The emphasis of the Uniquely You survey is that we need to learn not only about our personalities, but about those of others so that we can better understand and work with other unique individuals.

Through that study I learned that I am in this order for the DISC:

  • C type - competent, passive task-oriented person
  • D type - Decisive, active task-oriented person
  • I type - Influencing, active people-oriented person
  • S type - Sensitive, passive people-oriented
Jesus would have been all four types with all positive aspects from each and none of the negatives.

My spiritual gifts are almost always the same:
  • Discernment - I know the right thing to do and can detect evil in things and people
  • Administrative - I am organized
  • Prophecy/Teaching - usually close to each other and both deal with sharing the truth
  • Faith - Solid trust in God and what He expects me to do
Earlier in my life I had to take personalities tests for Seminary enrollment, the Foreign Mission Board, and even as part of pre-marital counseling. And just today I was required to take the Birkman survey as a requirement for some future training that we will be doing among our staff. I do not have the results yet, but this survey usually just comes back with a result of what you are in terms of a career. For example, a music ministry friend discovered he was an "artist" as a result of the Birkman survey. Imagine that.

So what is the point of these surveys, tests and questionnaires? They help you to focus on using your strengths, skills, gifts, etc. and possibly show you areas that you need to improve. To date I believe that I learned more about myself through the Strength's Finder survey, but that is only because I have known my personality type and spiritual gifts for many years.

If you do not know your spiritual gifts, I would recommend starting there. After that, I would definitely recommend you learn the DISC personality types because it has greatly helped me in learning how to work with other unique people. And I would strongly recommend the Strength's Finder survey because it will help you to really understand why you enjoy the things that you do and dread certain types of work.

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