What are your top strengths? Take the test

Just did the test and got:

1. Love

2. Appreciation of Beauty & Excellence

3. Creativity

Thanks @CherryBomb, it was interesting, a little surprising, but I can see how they might make sense.

1. Appreciation of beauty and excellence
2. Bravery
3. Love of learning

Beautiful @chookmojo and @Mazarita, I'm curious to hear if you think how you can see the strengths play out in your everyday life?

I can see how mine play out, for sure. I like to joke around a bit, sometimes to the point where it has gotten me in trouble particularly when I was younger (class clown), so I've learned how to use humour in appropriate places.

I have done many questionnairres since starting this forum, but also am reflective on the nature and assumptions behind the questions asked. I came up with

1) Love of learning

2) Judgment

3)Perserverance

I was surprised to see that Love was my No 22 strength or such ... I guess I put a high value on loving in a very self demanding way.

I answered that I did not have many people in my life so that looked like I had not been loving enough. I was shy to think that I might be the main support for my son which I know that I am .. but I did not answer that way.

One of the benefits of this forum for me .. is reading about others and seeing others get validation in situations that I struggled alone and seriously unsupported, with many extra commitments like little kids.

So I can think .. if I had had someone validate me that way when I was it would have made a difference... etc

Also my exhusband had a psychology major and used to get me to do testing, whereas my background was more psychoanalytic ...

Just reflecting ...

@CherryBomb Yeah definitely. I have taken this test a fair few times and it used to be that bravery was my top, and appreciation of beauty was second, but in the last couple of years that has switched around. I think I have been less brave as I have gotten older, youth has such indomitable courage!

So I feel like my love of the garden and my critters, of being out in nature and loving art are all about that appreciation of beauty. I actually get quite overwhelmed by it at times... But in a good way.

Bravery. Well you can call it courage or pigheadedness but I have a very long history of defending those I consider weak or helpless and I am never shy about speaking an unpopular idea if I feel like it needs to be heard. I am very much willing an able to put my actions where my mouth is, to walk the talk and be congruent to my values. I'm good at setting boundaries, and also at fessing up when I am in the wrong. I actually have a bit of a rule that if something scares me in a particular way, then I know I have to do it. It all stems from my original push through my crippling social anxiety when I realised that I was always going to be scared and I could either be scared on one room or out in the world. When it is the right kind of scary there is no downside, because what you get from facing and overcoming your fear is its own reward, regardless of how things actually turn out. It's hard to explain but it is a big important part of me.

Love of learning, well I am always reading and learning new things. I keep notepads and not stuff down, things that have been mentioned in a conversation in passing or a term I heard, or whatever and when I have time I go learn more about it. I absolutely love getting new skills and I love the stretchy feeling I get when I am learning something challenging and new, its like I can feel new neural pathways being formed.

An example of how all this works in combination is the way I have pushed myself WELL outside of my comfort zone at work, learning how to code and getting promoted into a role that I have zero formal education or background in, and I love doing it because I am always learning, and problem solving and working with awesome data and formulas. It's my top three all rolled up!

Wow @chookmojo, I'd never thought about how all three work in combination. I was looking at each character strength in isolation, but you got me thinking - how do my top strengths work in unison to influence my life.

Well, I guess committing to doing yoga six days a week is a good example. I find myself constantly feeling grateful towards my teacher and the ancient lineage that she is a part of. I think it also takes a level of humour to laugh at myself. Quite often when learning a new challenging posture, it can look pretty funny, particularly when I fumble and fall - I have fallen on my face a few times! And well, curiosity got me to commit to doing it six days a week. I was curious of what it would be like, to see if I could muster up the self-discipline to rise at 6am every morning (I am not a morning person), and that curiosity has kept me going to see how far this can go.

@Appleblossom even though love was not among your top strength, it doesn't mean that you don't have it in your character. As I understand it, your top strengths are just the more dominant. I curious to hear about how you feel your top strengths play out in your daily life?

I find the interaction between traits important too.

Love of learning is obviously a big thing for me and it has kept me engaged in both sides of learning transfers (student/teacher). It has kept me an open person rather than closed and that has been a life saver. I still teach and have a "teachery" interpersonal style, have taken up new instrument, more challenging choir, and love checking things on the net a bit like @chookmojo, and may go back to further study..

Judgement is a weird one as I am very wary of judgemental attitudes, or being judgmenetal myself, as my life was so far from the respectable norm etc, Critical thinking is a significant part of a BA and I did do a work course on decision making in my teens in the public service that helped me firm up a more rational approach which did conflict very much with my mothers precepts and demands for my obedience, my duty etc etc etc. but my mind is what I am left with after she is gone. The family is certainly fragmented so I have to accept and enjoy that.

Perserverance. Makes me laugh. I am still here, I have perservered with the life tasks, but when is perserverance a virtue or an obssession? My psychology uncle once told me about brain injury and perserveration issues .. and I think if I could have been able to walk away from things I might have less brain injury now. But I did try to have the self discipline to follow the important things through. I am happy with that. But because of my physical limitations I often let things go .. the strategy for my neck is keep changing activities etc., but I do come back to the same things.