No need to read between the lines

Sometimes it’s just there in black and white.

As part of a leadership exercise, I recently took the Strengths Finder assessment to determine my top five strength themes. While no inventory can adequately categorize a person (because God made us as unique individuals), it always fascinates me to see what a researcher will identify about me from my answers to a series of questions. And often how accurately.

My results from Strengths Finder (SF) were no different. I actually giggled aloud at some of the statements in the synopses. And how readily they pertain to my pessimism. Check it out: 

• You know that the world is an unpredictable place.
• … you like to plan ahead so as to anticipate what might go wrong.
• You identify the dangers, weigh their relative impact, and then place your feet deliberately.

Each of these comments fell under my “strength” of being Deliberative. While I’ve never gone so far as to consider these traits (which would be construed as negative in a culture that values optimism and positivity as highly as ours) as strengths, I do believe they are of value (as mentioned in previous posts).

Even being willing to consider these attributes as strengths requires a good bit of optimism from me, doesn’t it?

This post is part of a 31 day series entitled “Think on these things: Learning optimism.” For a full catalog of all the posts, visit the first page in the series by clicking here.