I recently attended a professional event called the CliftonStrengths Discussion. During this dinner, a psychologist provided tips on how to balance our college lives so that students could live a healthy lifestyle and also excel academically. We participated in skits, where we would demonstrate real life examples of good decision making, and also reenact the scenario in a manner that would later result in negative consequences, like going out instead of completing an assignment. After this, we discussed the Clifton Strengths survey that all business students completed over the summer.
The program came up with my list of strengths, and my number one strength was interestingly, being “Restorative”. This strength is about figuring out problems and solving them, which I always saw as a common expectation throughout my childhood and not necessarily a special trait. The second strength was “Empathy”, which I expected as I consider myself a very caring and allocentric person. My third strength was “Belief”, which I assume results from the environment I grew up in, in which my family instilled in me certain core values. “Consistency” was the next strength on the list, which I also believe comes from my childhood environment, more specifically through being multicultural and focusing on viewing and treating all people equally. The final strength on the list is “Futuristic”, which is an important characteristic and I see how it applies to my everyday curiosity for new and innovative products and technology.
The five strengths are a good representation of the type of personality and characteristics I convey. When asked what strength most accurately describes me, I explained to the group that it was my third strength: My beliefs are the most important part of my personality, because I believe they influence all my other strengths and aspects of my day to day life. One of my core beliefs is family and community, and this value positively impacted my relationships at home and with my peers at school. A specific example of how I applied my beliefs was during my senior year; my High School had unfair parking laws, and many cars were being unjustly towed (including mine). In the spirit of community and unity, I united my close group of friends to start a petition, and later this group grew to most of the senior class that drove to school. We were able to successfully make the school rethink the harsh laws surrounding parking and no more cars were towed for the rest of the year.
I would personally recommend taking the CliftonStrengths survey to any college student or professional. It is a great to to deepen your understanding of yourself, and also identify your strengths and weaknesses to help you make more aware decisions when choosing a career path. If you completed the survey, what were your top five strengths, are these a good representation of the type of person you are?
Link to the ClifftonStrengths survey:
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