Every person is created for a purpose. Throughout a lifetime we each are given many opportunities to operate out of our design through the various movements of life. Though the ability to appreciate one’s current circumstance is a gift from above, we can achieve a greater sense of fulfillment, joy, and peace when we understand our unique giftedness and how we are to use what we have been given to bless those in our proximity.
While no one appreciates a boastful person, it is a wise individual who understands their giftedness via their strengths and weaknesses. Thus, a worthwhile exercise is to contemplate, “What are the three things I am good at?” (or your top five for you overachievers). Once an understanding of this is ascertained, a fun and fruitful exercise is to share your insights with individuals whom you trust and are close to. After you share, solicit their feedback and receive their affirmations and unspoken additions. I assure you, if you engage in such conversation, it will be one of the more life giving conversations of your week, if not month or year.
This conversation of exploring one’s giftedness is a conversation I have been around for a long time. A few years ago I took a strengths finder assessment and received the results of Learner, Consistency, Arranger, Positivity, and Responsibility. While I do not let those words constrict me, I hold onto the truth they carry, abiding by a good life philosophy–examine all things and hold on to what’s good.
Without further ado, here are three things I have discovered, through internal reflection and external input, to be some of my inherent strengths.
- I have the gift of encouragement. I am good at speaking words of encouragement, appreciation, and life to people who are in desperate need of such timely words.
- I have the gift of compassion. I have a strong ability to love people, especially the outcasts and downtrodden. A part of my ability to do this is my ability to see/focus on the best of an individual.
- I have the gift of synthesizing. I have a hunger to learn processes (natural, emotional, relational, systemic, etc.) and the ability to digest and comprehend them in a rational, logical, systematic way that eliminates the fluff and focuses on the heart of the issue.
While I could go on and on and on about my humility, etc. that will suffice for now. ; )
To conclude, recently I’ve been talking with my friend Brian Divine about the inherent weaknesses of every strength. For example, while rocks are strong, they are not flexible. While I am not yet ready to articulate the “dark side” of the above mentioned strengths, a valuable exercise, if not more so than the identification of our strengths, is the connection to how they make us susceptible to the various shortfalls we succumb to. Stay tuned for the follow up discussion.
Discovering with you,
Unmasked & Unfiltered
Unmasked Unfiltered 
Excellent. Grateful to be on this journey with you!
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Good stuff Aaron!
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