Evidence of a Strength

One of the most frequently asked questions when doing awareness sessions goes a little something like this; "So, I was in a specific mindset, emotional state and context when I did this assessment. So how accurate are these results and will they be different if I had to do this assessment again?"

The answer to this question is Yes and No, essentially, the assessment is scientifically designed to measure your natural energy and need when having to navigate any type of thinking process, emotional aspects and action orientated scenarios. Therefore, the context you found yourself in when taking the assessment would have little to no effect on your results. You're hardwired a certain way and therefor you will respond the way you will, your context definitely changes, you grow more and more into yourself. That is why we say you start with these measured energies as talents and through knowledge, skill and experience they become strengths to help you navigate your context.

Let's say you did retake the assessment, you will find that the change in the results will be minimal and that some of your Strength results will have jumped by a number or two, but that's the science of the tool. You are who you are and the day you took the assessment a Strength may have been taking the lead due to the context you found yourself in. On a different day with a different context, you may have another Strength result a little higher or a little lower because of how you used it depending on your context.

This is a mouth full and you may still be with me or be completely lost, so here is a case study as an example; written from personal experience to truly show you how your strengths remain your strengths, wether you'r 16, 26 or a 126.

I first did the CliftonStrengths Assessment when I was 16 in the year 2013, and in my top 10 results I had the Strength of Relator come up as number 8. Fast forward to 2019, I decided to take the assessment again, because believe it or not, I also had doubts and asked the exact question stated above. My results came out almost as a copy and paste of my results in 2013, the smallest change being that my Strength of relator came out as number 7 and not 8. A small change right.

Now, having the results from two different reports with a 6 year gap between the time of taking the assessment and having the results being almost exactly the same was enough to convince me of the accuracy of the tool. However, it may not be for you, and although myself and many other Strengths coaches that has had clients have the same happen with them when retaking the assessment in significantly different life phases, I won't reference their real life examples due to client confidentiality aspects, I will share my personal real life example of how the report mirrors the accuracy of how you will remain the natural energy and need that you are in response to thinking, feeling and behavioural patterns within your vastly changing context.

If you haven't guessed by now, I'm going to share how my Strength of Relator has been present from 2013 to the present day, 10 years later but before I do, I'll have to explain the Strength of Relator in a nutshell, just so you can see how the science of the energy has been applied in my life.

Relators are very loyal and trust orientated people, they don't have capacity for many people within their intimate space and only let a few people into this space based on the authenticity, trust and loyalty aspects that relators will sense, scan and use to determine where a person falls with regards to how closely they let them into this space. An important characteristic of relators to keep in mind is that if their trust is broken, they will rather terminate a relationship than attempt to entertain an unauthentic relationship. Now there is much more to this Strength with regards to its energy and need but that, which I explained now, will be enough for you to follow the significance of this Strength within my personal example.

So without further ado, let's jump into my Relator story.

As a relator, I have about three to four people I could tell you about as evidence of this Strength, but a blog can only be so long and you only have so much time, so allow me to virtually introduce you to my one lifelong friend, Alsi. [Inserting cringy photo from our teen years below].

This photo is from 2012, and trust me, our love and loyalty is still going as strong as ever. Anyway, Alsi has been in my relator circle since that year and we have grown a lot. A couple of weeks ago, I was feeling nostalgic and thought to read through a couple of my old journals, and I found a friendship love letter I wrote to her in October of 2013. I'll place a photo of the entry bellow.

The entry reads:

Dear Alsi, Pookie! (my special nickname for her), No words can describe how thankful I am for you! Please don't ever change to please people. You are an amazing person & I love you for you! Mess up & I will blame the other person, Always! I know times are not always perfect & I am grateful we had each other to make it perfect! I hope you find more happiness in your life! More than I could ever fathom. I hope one day we will still be together, old & wrinkly as we might get & tell our grandkids our fantastical stories AKA awesome stories. I love you. Your baba (her special nickname for me). - Louise!

Now a whole paragraph can be dedicated to my horrible spelling and mindset about enabling someone you care about's bad decisions and/or actions but that's not the point of this post. The point is, I wrote this letter to her a year into our friendship, my relator trusted her then, it was loyal to her then and we were our most authentic selfs then.

Here's the evidence of the Strength; 10 years later I still mean every word of love and loyalty. My relator invited her into my intimate space and she stuck around. Today I still trust her as much if not more, Im still loyal to her if not more and we are still as authentic around each other as ever, and due to maturity over the last 10 years, I'd say our authenticity in the friendship has grown even more past the teen years of trying to fit in and impress.

Bellow is a photo of us, 10 years later and if I remember, I will add another 10 year photo update in 2033.

There are so many other areas of benefits that come from knowing your strengths and going on a coaching journey. If you are interested then you can get in touch and we can explore what will work best for you.