I enjoy learning about myself, so I took the Clifton Strengths finder tests to gain insights to my strengths, abilities and weakness. However, whenever I took the tests I never quite knew how to put them into action or how to cultivate other strengths or even more problematic – how to overcome my weaknesses.
To make things worse, I would take personality test after personality test and multiple career tests, confused about what I need to do in order to get some darn breakthroughs. I’m thinking “when is it going to happen??!”
After the 20th test, I gave up on understanding why I wasn’t making the progress I wanted in my career and in life, so when I met Jeanelle and she told me she could help, I was a bit defeated, but nonetheless intrigued and here’s why: Jeanelle has my same highly analytical, idealistic yet still very practical personality type, able to take in multiple perspectives that aren’t just her own, then draws creepily accurate conclusions or predictions about what one should do with that information as near objective as one could get.
I have similar abilities when it comes to others but not as well with myself. I needed someone’s opinion, intuition and skills I could trust; someone who could notice things I could not. So when she said she would give me a review, I knew I could trust her insight. I even took a whole new test the week before, because I knew she would not disappoint.
I presented my results, then after she had some time to review them, we got on a call and she revealed her findings. Wow was I blown away. I didn’t even notice where the time went as she pointed out trends and patterns from the results and combined them with other analysis techniques in combination to create a holistic idea of what I needed to do in certain areas of my life. She clarified and explained what major factors have been hindering my success so far and how to break through those obstacles and weaknesses to reach my goals.
Why I liked her assessment is because she was objective enough for me to accept certain statements as being true. She was accurate enough to make me go “wow…okay wow wow, yeah that’s a great point,” and yet her thoughts were personal and subject enough for me to know her assessment was right for just me. These are things I will never get from just taking the test and even their insights. The general results and analysis left so much on the table to interpret and get confused over, but Jeanelle just went ahead and picked up the main dish, dessert and the silverware right up off the table.
Now I see the truths in her assessments in my daily interactions. Instead of just going with the flow and wondering why things in my life turn out the way they do, I am acting with awareness, executing specific tasks she has given me and for the first time in my life I am starting to see the kinds of results I used to only dream of.
Listen, if you’ve been stuck or spinning your wheels or waiting on the right opportunity, then stop waiting. Set up a call with Jeanelle and get the answers to questions that make you wonder “Is all this effort worth it? Why am I here? Are things ever going to change? Okay, things will change but when??”. Let me tell you, your breakthrough may or may not be coming. It might be right around the corner or it could be 20 years from now.
What I DO know is that whenever my breakthroughs were supposed to happen, they started to after I had that discussion with Jeanelle. And yours could be in a simple test, Jeanelle’s accurate insights and her recommended course of action for you. I have been taking action and am so glad I did, because my day-to-day interactions having been improving greatly, right in front of me.
From a few small changes based on my new awareness, and her action plan, I am capitalizing on my lesser strengths to improve my quality of life. Thank you Jeanelle – you really should have started coaching sooner!
Take the assessment and do Jeanelle’s action plan, start applying your strengths and you will being CREATING the life you want today.
Racial Agency Initiative 