Reflective Essay on Personal Strengths

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Introduction
StrengthsQuest is a personality assessment tool used by career-oriented companies and schools to help determine what careers a given person might be suitable for. This is a test approximately 150 questions long, that measures one’s top five personality strengths, so that those top five may be recognized and utilized in a proficient manner within that person’s career. This maximizes one’s workable efficiency. This report will analyze my top five personal strengths and make a correlation between them and my future career endeavors.
Personal Strengths Themes
My top five personal strengths are Belief, Responsibility, Competition, Developer, and Relator. In order to further discuss these strengths, one must have a basic understanding of what goes into each strength theme.
Belief
     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 (StrengthsQuest 2010).

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Responsibility
     Your Responsibility theme forces you to take psychological ownership for anything you commit to, and whether large or small, you feel emotionally bound to follow it through to completion. Your good name depends on it. If for some reason you cannot deliver, you automatically start to look for ways to make it up to the other person. Apologies are not enough. Excuses and rationalizations are totally unacceptable. You will not quite be able to live with yourself until you have made restitution. This conscientiousness, this near obsession for doing things right, and your impeccable ethics, combine to create your reputation: utterly dependable. When assigning new responsibilities, people will look to you first because they know it will get done. When people come to you for help-and they soon will-you must be selective. Your willingness to volunteer may sometimes lead you to take on more than you should (StrengthsQuest 2010).
Competition
     Competition is rooted in comparison. When you look at the world, you are instinctively aware of other people’s performance. Their performance is the ultimate yardstick. No matter how hard you tried, no matter how worthy your intentions, if you reached your goal but did not outperform your peers, the achievement feels hollow. Like all competitors, you need other people. You need to compare. If you can compare, you can compete, and if you can compete, you can win. And when you win, there is no feeling quite like it. You like measurement because it facilitates comparisons. You like other competitors because they invigorate you. You like contests because they must produce a winner. You particularly like contests where you know you have the inside track to be the winner. Although you are gracious to your fellow competitors and even stoic in defeat, you don’t compete for the fun of competing. You compete to win. Over time you will come to avoid contests where winning seems unlikely (StrengthsQuest 2010).
Developer
     You see the potential in others. Very often, in fact, potential is all you see. In your view no individual is fully formed. On the contrary, each individual is a work in progress, alive with possibilities. And you are drawn toward people for this very reason. When you interact with others, your goal is to help them experience success. You look for ways to challenge them. You devise interesting experiences that can stretch them and help them grow. And all the while you are on the lookout for the signs of growth-a new behavior learned or modified, a slight improvement in a skill, a glimpse of excellence or of “flow” where previously there were only halting steps. For you these small increments- invisible to some-are clear signs of potential being realized. These signs of growth in others are your fuel. They bring you strength and satisfaction. Over time many will seek
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you out for help and encouragement because on some level they know that your helpfulness is both genuine and fulfilling to you (StrengthsQuest 2010).
Relator
     Relator describes your attitude toward your relationships. In simple terms, the Relator theme pulls you toward people you already know. You do not necessarily shy away from meeting new people-in fact, you may have other themes that cause you to enjoy the thrill of turning strangers into friends-but you do derive a great deal of pleasure and strength from being around your close friends. You are comfortable with intimacy. Once the initial connection has been made, you deliberately encourage a deepening of the relationship. You want to understand their feelings, their goals, their fears, and their dreams; and you want them to understand yours. You know that this kind of closeness implies a certain amount of risk-you might be taken advantage of-but you are willing to accept that risk. For you a relationship has value only if it is genuine. And the only way to know that is to entrust yourself to the other person. The more you share with each other, the more you risk together. The more you risk together, the more each of you proves your caring is genuine. These are your steps toward real friendship, and you take them willingly (StrengthsQuest 2010).
Career Correlations
     Physical fitness has always been my passion. I am currently working on getting a Bachelor’s degree in exercise science. With that being said, I have two routes that I would like to go. I would either like to be an athletic coach of some kind, or a personal trainer. With the strength themes I exhibited, these career fields are somewhat perfect for me.
     With the strength theme, Belief, I want nothing more than to make a difference in people’s lives, through the avenue of physical fitness. By doing this, I can be happy with myself even if I don’t make a ton of money. I believe that if you love what you do, the money will fall in to place (Ted Leonsis 2010). I am a big advocate of having a purpose in everything you do, whether large or small. My Belief, is that, I can have a positive influence on someone’s life, and
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     teach them values and help them achieve personal goals they have set for themselves, through sports or working out.
     Responsibility is my next theme, which gives me accountability to my future “clients” and “players.” I am not one to give up in anything when something doesn’t go my way. If I commit to something, there’s no turning back from it (Rotegård,A.,Moore,S.,Fagermoen,M.,&Ruland,C. 2010). If I cannot accomplish something or make a mistake, I don’t try to make excuses, but rather, learn from it and move on. It is that sense of Responsibilty.
     Competition is a great strength theme for me, especially given the option of coaching. Competition is a way that I can measure my work ethic and achievement motivation. I have a need to compare and contrast myself with others around me (Vetter,R.,&Symonds,M. 2010). Not in the sense that I am better than they are, but constantly trying to better myself, by learning from those who I feel are better competitors. Competition can be a great asset when used right.
     Developer is another great strength, because it can be applied, so easy, to both personal training and coaching as well. I think it is necessary for both too. I am good at seeing the “big picture” in people. I can see how someone may be good at something, but then know how to tweak their skills enough to help make them great at it. Through precision, non-complacency, and attention to details, I can help bring out the potential in others (Mark Helfand 2005). This is a huge driving force for me.
     Finally, Relator is the last of my top five strength themes. Relator allows me to connect with those I work with. Empathy is so very important to both athletics and personal training.
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When you can see through someone else’s eyes, you can share a bond with them that allows you to use a leadership role, by giving advice and making corrections without being questioned. It builds trust between both parties and allows for more efficient goal achievement.
     These top five strength themes that I exhibit, I believe, are not only perfect for coaching or personal training, but are, absolutely necessary in being successful as well.
Personal Strengths
References
Mark Helfand. (2005). Using Evidence Reports: Progress And Challenges In Evidence-Based Decision Making.Health Affairs,24(1),123-127.
Ted Leonsis. (2010,April). How to Build a Happy Company.Newsweek,155(15).
Rotegård,A.,Moore,S.,Fagermoen,M.,&Ruland,C..(2010). Health assets: A concept analysis. International Journal of Nursing Studies,47(4),513.
Vetter,R.,&Symonds,M..(2010). CORRELATIONS BETWEEN INJURY, TRAINING INTENSITY, AND PHYSICAL AND MENTAL EXHAUSTION AMONG COLLEGE ATHLETES.Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research,24(3),587-96.