Well, today was my last day of work at Car-Part.com, and I’m feeling good about the decision. I still don’t have another job lined up, but I’m at peace with the simple knowledge that I’m moving on to something else, something that will most likely be more fulfilling than what I was doing.

Over the past two weeks, I’ve done some thinking and investigating about what my personal strengths and weaknesses are. I’ve taken two different personality profiles during this time: a spiritual gifts leadership profile by Next Level and a strengths profile via StrengthsFinder.com.

The Next Level Profile was a 3-in-1 profile, which included a spiritual gifts profile and a personality profile. In the spiritual gifts profile (link is for a list of the gifts, not for the profile I took), I scored highest in:

My lowest scoring areas were:

No real surprises there, though I thought Teaching would be higher than it was.

The personality profile determined which of the four personality types in the DISC Model of Human Behavior applied to me best. D is Dominance; I is Influence, S is Steadiness, and C is Conscientiousness. I scored just about as high as you can on the C personality type, followed by S, D and then I at the bottom. In more detail, a C personality is described as Analytical, Orderly, Cautious, Perfectionist, and likes to Plan Ahead. Yeah, that pegs me pretty well. Biblical examples of C personalities are Thomas and Esther.

The other profile, which is the companion site of a book called “Now, Discover Your Strengths,” involved taking a 180 question survey in order to find your top “themes.” These themes are based on a Gallup study of over two million people. The site reported my top 5 themes as the following:

I still need to read the book’s descriptions of these themes, but it seems like they all apply.

What I’m really finding interesting about taking these profiles aren’t so much what my strengths are, but what my weaknesses are. I think we all have some basic idea on what areas we’re strongest in, what we like to do the most, but it’s often hard for us to admit our weaknesses and confront them. For example, being a “C” personality type means I’m strong with the quality, correctness and finer details of things, but on the other hand, I need to be more positive and not worry about things so much. I need to be more flexible and not expect structure with everything in life. As many of you can tell, I tend to be pessimistic about things, so I need to look more towards the optimistic side on things. Learning my weaknesses and the areas that I need to work on will definitely help me grow as a person and become who God wants me to be.

Even if I struggle finding a job, just being able to learn more about myself and who God made me will make this season of life rewarding. If you haven’t already done so, I would encourage each of you to learn more about yourself, to discover and admit to yourself your strengths and weaknesses, so you can truly be who God has made you and be used by Him in whatever you do.

I’m now at the point where I can understand more about myself, but I’m still struggling with how God wants to use me. While I feel closer to Him than I have in a some time, I’m still not able to hear the direction that He’s leading me in, and what He wants me to do career-wise. I definitely can feel it when He gives me a big ol’ kick in the butt, but I often miss that “still small voice” when it whispers to me.