Now, Discover Your Strengths

From before, I've always been searching, have always asked, What am I good at? What are my strengths? All I could see was what I cannot do and what I was weak in.

Then I was recommended to read this book by Marcus Buckingham & Donald O. Clifton called "Now, Discover Your Strengths". The entire book stresses on the importance of focusing on your strengths and only to improve your weakness so that it doesn't suppress your strengths. It highlights that society looks at your weaknesses and management tend to send you to improve your weaknesses and rarely to improve your strengths. In school, they make you study on your weak subjects, rarely helps you build on your good subjects. When we see grades, we see the Bs, Cs and Ds and hardly bother about the As. It brings examples of people like Tiger Woods and Warren Buffet who succeeded because they used their strengths in what they do.

It's interesting.
I took the test.
I didn't quite like the strengths that I have.
Sad rite?

My top 5 are
1. Deliberate - careful, vigilant, private. I see risks in life and address them accordingly.
I hate to admit it, but that describes me perfectly. I think I should be in the security line. I know that if I were to commit murder, I would commit the perfect murder because I would look into all aspects on how I can cover my tracks and not be caught before I commit murder. Erm, no my house is not a fortress although I can tell you where security needs to be tighten.

2. Responsibility - It means I'm utterly dependable. If I say I'll do it, I'll do it. If I don't want to do it, I won't commit to it. Hmm..

3. Futuristic - "loves to peer over the horizon". I never thought myself as one who thinks about the future..or it being a strength. Doesn't everyone think about tomorrow? I didn't realize this until I changed jobs that the reason why I changed was because I was thinking about tomorrow. Now, I do find myself thinking about the future, for myself and for others.

4. Harmony - Oooo.. this is the reason why I'm not nasty and keep myself in check and try to agree with people and when I disagree, I keep silent and acknowledge that everyone has their own opinions and I hate "scenes".

5. Consistency - Treat everyone the same, or realize that everyone should be treated fairly. I guess that means I'm not a 2 faced slimeball that is super nice to one and super bitchy to another??

What I don't like about my strengths is that they sound so boring. Sigh. I want a bit more excitement in my life. That's why I like roller coasters (calculated risks) and not rock climbing. I think that's why I married my husband. He's definitely not deliberate. We nearly missed the last train back to Purley Oaks.

I guess my strengths all kind of complement each other. Anyway, I decided to be a financial planner 'cos my husband said I'm kind of good in planning. ( You can guess why he said that). I do think my strengths matched the job..except for the networking part - which I'm trying hard to improve. Hence this blog.

I've decided to blog more about my thoughts as a way to overcome this perceived 'risk' of baring my thoughts to people. As I type, I have in mind that people would read and I tell myself that what they think is none of my business and shouldn't bother me. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions rite?

However, if you want to find your strengths so that you can blog about it, go check out the latest version "Strengths Finder 2.0" by Tom Rath.

I think I'll check out some personality tests now.

Uh Oh Overloaded!

Er.. I think I overloaded my washing machine. It's 10kg. I put in a queen size quilt cover and a pillow and put the setting for 'duvet'.

Everything was fine until it reached the spin/rinse cycle. Then it began to vibrate a LOT to the extend that the washing machine moved! There was this heavy thumping sound!

Lesson of the day : Don't overload the machine.

Sigh. Right now I'm washing the bed sheet and 2 pillow cases (lots of empty space in the machine, so tempted to throw in a few more stuff)

Next goal: Wash the quilt! Oh, after I dried the bed sheet.

Miss Manners

I came across this column in www.msn.com by Miss Manners. It was a really interesting read. Some of her suggestions can be quite subtilely sarcastic and other times strikes a point. It made me think about "etiquette" a little bit differently.

Coming from an Asian background where "face" is important and you don't want to "offend" everyone, I sometimes equate manners with agreeing all the time and letting the other person have his way, even when in my heart I want to say no really badly.

I like the way she suggested how a parent who wanted to invite only 3/4 of the class for her son's birthday party due to the party budget and Miss Manners said that " Do you think that Owen really needs five to eight enemies whom he has pointedly excluded from his party?" And goes on to inform that "if you discriminate, you must do so in ways that at least appear to be impersonal" And suggests a few ways on how to discriminate impersonally like inviting only the boys..

Another situation that I like how she responded is this article on a foraging co-worker. If it was me, I would have suggested ways on how to tell him off but inviting him to be part of the "team" is quite cool. Now he is forced to participate, since it's difficult to stop him from eating without creating an "enemy".