Discover Your Strengths with These Tools
Most of us have been there – staring at the job application, dating site, interview team, and the like. They ask one of the classic questions, “Tell us about your strengths.” (And of course, “Tell us about yourself” – a topic for another day!)
Maybe you can easily rattle off a bunch of strengths, but sometimes they sound so darn generic!
- I’m dependable.
- I’m organized.
- I’m a team player.
Now, these are GREAT strengths that you shouldn’t be ashamed of, but I also think they drastically understate the unique strengths that you bring to the table. And if you’re not even sure what your strengths are, what do you do?
Beloved, if you’re ready to discover your unique strengths, you came to the right place. In this post we’ll walk through some handy tools, resources and questions to help you discover your strengths.
You have so much potential to impact the world in powerful ways. Whatever your situation, discovering your strengths are a key part of embracing who God created you to be (and He created you for great purpose!), which helps you then step confindently into any season of life with passion, purpose, and peace.
Let’s do this!
- Where do my strengths or gifts come from?
- Discover your strengths through self-reflection from a faith lens
- Discover your strengths with personality tests*
- Discover your strengths with the Embrace Your Potential Playbook
- Articles related to discovering your strengths
- Wrapping up how to discover your strengths
Where do my strengths or gifts come from?
As a Christian life coach, I’m all about helping Christian women embrace who God created them to be as God’s beloved.
Your identity as God’s beloved is the most life-giving role you have. After all, He created you!
That being said, all of your strength comes from God, your I’m-so-totally-in-love-with-you Father.
So when we’re talking about leaning into our strengths – it’s all about appreciating gifts that He gave you.
Here’s a few Scriptures highlighting how our gifts come from God:
Each gift you’ve been given – including your innate strengths – comes from God. Give credit where it’s due!
Each of us has received a special gift – a spiritual talent graciously given by God. We’re called to be good stewards (or managers) of our strengths by using them to serve others.
It’s a privilege and a responsibility to use our gifts!
Discover your strengths through self-reflection from a faith lens
What IS self-reflection?
Let’s make sure we’re on the same page about what self-reflection is. Here’s one definition that I particularly like:
Self-reflection is deliberate time set aside to slow down in the busyness of your life to look back on your day, month or year in an attempt to learn from your experiences, desires, and feelings
Seattle Christian Counseling
How self-reflection and faith intersect
Paul writes about how important it is for our minds to be transformed by God. I love how the Amplified Bible translation puts it.
In a nutshell: it’s important to to take time to reflect so that you can be transformed to be more like Christ. As you prioritize time for self-reflection, you’ll not only get to know God’s heart better, but also your own!
Self-reflection questions to ask yourself to discover your strengths
Ready for the DIY approach to get to know yourself better? Grab your favorite thinking tools and give yourself a few minutes to reflect.
Before diving into the questions, pray for the Holy Spirit to move through you during this time. (Really, all the time, right?! But, you get the idea.) To open your eyes, mind and heart to the gifts He’s given you.
- What brings me joy?
- When have I felt like I was in the flow? Like time just vanished because I was so caught up in the moment?
- What have I gotten compliments for?
- What did I enjoy doing as a child? Favorite games and play?
- When I have free time, what do I like to do with that time? What am I drawn toward?
- What do I enjoy most about my days? Inversely, what do I least enjoy about my days? (That might be a sign that you’re not using your strengths!)
Braindump anything and everything that comes to mind.
Then I challenge you to circle back to your answers and play the Why game.
Basically, ask yourself, “Why do I enjoy fill-in-the-blank?”
Perhaps you enjoy organizing rooms because you like thinking about how Future You will use the space, eliminating the un-essentials, beautifying a space, or creating systems.
We can dig more into this idea in a future discussion, but asking “Why?” can help you get clearer about what your strengths are and how you can use them in more of your life.
Discover your strengths with personality tests*
Personality tests or personality assessments are phenomenal tools to use to discover some of your strengths. Each assessment has a different angle for exploring what makes you unique. Here’s just a few topics that assessments can dig into:
- Identifying and maximizing your strengths
- Behavior patterns
- Your motivations, fears, longings and desires
- How you engage in the world, including what energizes you, how you take in information, how you make decisions, and how you organize your life
- Career fields that could be a strong fit
- How you learn
- How you’re creative
- … the list goes on.
In many ways, it’s kind of like picking your favorite flavor of ice cream – there’s countless personality flavors out there. Just start with using one and see what you find!
Here’s a few of my personal favorite personality assessments to check out, in alphabetical order:
- CliftonStrengths
- DISC
- Enneagram
- Keirsey Temperament Sorter® (KTS®)
- Myers Briggs Typology Indicator®(MBTI®)
- True Colors
You can find a more in-depth post about these specific personality tests here: Take these 6 Personality Tests to know yourself better!
*Note: Personality tests are actually personality assessments. Why should you care about this? In an assessment, you’re assessing where you fall across a spectrum of behaviors. You can pass or fail a test. You can’t fail a personality assessment!
Think personality tests are useless? Try this instead.
Discover your strengths with the Embrace Your Potential Playbook
As we just discussed, there’s a TON of personality tools out there you can try out. It can also be totally overwhelming. You might be wondering:
- How much time will it take?
- Is it legit or just something some rando made up?
- What do I DO with the results? Give myself a pat on the back or bang my head on the wall from disappointment and move on?
Really, deciding which personality tool to use really boils down to what area of your life you want to focus on. There’s really not a “right or wrong” tool to use.
Personally, I’d been wanting a tool that could not only help folks identify their God-gifted design but also give practical tips for living intentionally in their day-to-day.
It’s awesome to know your strengths, but how do you integrate them in your day-to-day messiness? More importantly, in light of your identity as God’s beloved?
So, the Embrace Your Potential Playbook was born! In the playbook you’ll find:
- What God says about personality. After all, He came up with the idea, so His perspective matters.
- Personality descriptions to help you determine your type. Sometimes we don’t realize what’s unique about our experience until someone describes it to us.
- Type tips for living more intentionally – by leveraging your strengths and being sensitive to your weaknesses.
If you haven’t yet, download the free digital Embrace Your Potential Playbook to start living more intentionally today.
FYI: Coffee Chats and Yoga Mats uses the Myers Briggs Typology Indicator®(MBTI®) and the Keirsey Temperament Sorter® (KTS®) as its primary personality references. Though these personality tools are not faith-based, they are well-researched with solid data supporting their findings.
Articles related to discovering your strengths
- Discover Your Strengths with These Tools
- 4 Personality Tips to Help You Intentionally Use Your Strengths
- What Does the Bible Say About Using Your Strengths?
- How you can live with passion and purpose by understanding your personality
- What does God say about personality? (Especially Yours??)
- Take these 6 Personality Tests to know yourself better!
- Think personality tests are useless? Try this instead.
Wrapping up how to discover your strengths
Beloved, you have incredible strengths that are just waiting to be discovered.
Whether you’re wanting to uncover them for a job interview, date, or just to manage your life better (Can I get an amen?!), you have tools at your fingertips to start getting clarity on what makes you uniquely you. Pick any of the options below to get started!
- Through self-reflection from a faith lens
- With personality tests*
- With the Embrace Your Potential Playbook
You have so much potential to impact the world in powerful ways. Use these resources to gain clarity on your strengths so you can start living intentionally with passion and purpose as God’s beloved!
Cortney is a Christian life coach and recovering over-achiever who is passionate about helping Christian women embrace who God created them to be so they can confidently step into any season of life with passion, purpose, and peace. She’s also an ENFJ, MBTI® coach, M. Ed in College Student Development, Pilates and Yoga teacher, wife, mama, and entrepreneur. In her pre-kid life, she coordinated programs for, coached, funded, and provided leadership training for more than 60+ student organizations and 100s of university students for 7+ years. (Helping people highlight their inner awesomeness and reach their goals is her jam!)
More importantly, she’s God’s beloved.
