This Is Basically a Cosmo Quiz for Your Career

Honestly,

There was a time when you could open a magazine and learn everything you apparently needed to know about yourself in approximately seven questions.

What Does Your Lipstick Shade Say About Your Dating Personality?

Which ’90s Heartthrob Is Your Soulmate?

Or my personal favorite made-up-but-probably-not-that-far-off example:

Pick a Pasta Shape and We'll Tell You Why He Hasn't Called.

Very scientific.

Well, friends, we've grown up.

And now we have the professional version.

Assessments.

I actually love a good professional assessment.

Not because I believe five words or four letters can explain an entire human being.

They can't.

But sometimes someone gives you language for something you've always known about yourself but couldn't quite explain.

And suddenly you think:

Ohhhhh. That's why I do that.

Two of my favorites are CliftonStrengths and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

Let's start with CliftonStrengths.

My top five are:

Communication. Woo. Ideation. Activator. Restorative.

And if you've ever met me, you're probably thinking:

Well, yes.

Communication is pretty self-explanatory. I process through words. I connect through words. I can usually find a way to explain something so it makes sense to another person.

Woo stands for Winning Others Over. It's about enjoying the challenge of meeting new people, finding connection and building rapport.

Ideation is the part of me that sees possibilities everywhere.

What if we tried this?

What if we connected these two things?

Has anyone ever thought about doing it this way?

Activator is why eventually I get tired of talking about the idea and want to do something with it.

And Restorative?

Give me a problem.

Something isn't working?

Excellent.

Now I'm interested.

When I first saw those five together, it didn't tell me who I was.

It gave me language for who I already was.

That's an important distinction.

Then there's Myers-Briggs.

I'm an ENFJ.

Extroverted. Intuitive. Feeling. Judging.

Again, four letters cannot capture an entire person.

But they can give you a framework for thinking about how you tend to get energy, take in information, make decisions and approach the outside world.

And here's where I think these assessments become genuinely useful.

Don't take one because you need an internet test to tell you who you are.

Take one because it might help you notice yourself better.

Maybe you finally understand why the part of your job everyone else seems to love drains every ounce of energy from your body.

Maybe you recognize why you are always the person asking, “Okay, but what's the actual plan?”

Maybe you realize you've spent years trying to improve something that isn't a weakness at all.

Maybe you discover a strength you've been dismissing because it comes so naturally to you that you assumed everybody could do it.

They can't.

That's one of the sneakiest things about strengths.

The things we're particularly good at often don't feel particularly impressive to us.

They just feel normal.

Because they're our normal.

So here's your next Work on Yourself assignment:

Go learn something about yourself.

Take a reputable professional assessment.

If your employer offers CliftonStrengths, try it.

If you've done Myers-Briggs before, pull your results back out and actually read them again.

Look at the language.

Notice what resonates.

Question what doesn't.

Ask yourself where those patterns show up in your work, your relationships and the decisions you make.

You don't have to build your identity around the results.

Please don't introduce yourself at Thanksgiving as:

“Hi, I'm Colleen, ENFJ, Communication-Woo-Ideation-Activator-Restorative.”

People will stop inviting you.

The assessment is a tool.

You are still the person.

But having better language for who you are can make it a whole lot easier to explain what you bring with you when you walk into a room.

And apparently I've reached the portion of this Letter where my Gen X is showing.

Because all I can picture now is a shooting star flying across the screen with a rainbow behind it:

The More You Know.

If you heard the little sound effect in your head when you read that, congratulations.

You're my people.

Now go learn something about yourself.