Cather Circle was awesome!! And I was awarded a $2500 scholarship to go to Mexico this summer! I applied for this study abroad/internship scholarship back in February and found out Friday afternoon that I got it!. And I was awarded the full amount! This is so awesome because the scholarship will cover the entire cost of the trip, including airfare! Lots of exclamation points I know, but I'm seriously excited :)
For those of you non-nebraskans (or maybe you went to UNL but still don't know) who don't know, Cather Circle is a womens alumni organization that pairs successful alums with undergraduate students for mentoring. I love being a part of Cather Circle because it is so empowering to be around wonderful, well-established, professional women! They are so encouraging and helpful (both professionally and personally). We have a 2 day meeting (kind of like a conference) once in the fall and once in the spring. This year's spring meeting was so much fun and we were able to take the GALLUP StregnthsFinder test, which is awesome because normally the type of assessment we received costs around $750. For those of you who are unfamiliar with GALLUP it's somewhat similar to a personality test (which I love). It's used a lot in the corporate world to figure out and maximize a company's (and the individuals within the company) strengths in order to achieve more. It has 34 themes and after completing the assessment you find out your top 5. Mine were pretty much spot on, and they're mentioned below with a brief description of each.
1. Significance- you want to be very significant in the eyes of other people, you want to be known and appreciated for the unique strengths you bring. your life is filled with goals and achievements that you crave. you want your work to be a way of life rather than a job. you want your life to be meaningful and impact others.
2. Achiever- you have a constant need for achievement. you must achieve something tangible in order to feel good about yourself. you have an internal fire pushing you to do more and achieve more, though your relentless need for achievement might not be logical. an achiever must learn to live with a whisper of discontent for as soon as one achievement is completed the internal fire will force you on to the next accomplishment.
3. Belief- you have certain core values that are enduring. belief theme causes you to be altruistic, family oriented, even spiritual, and to value responsibility, and high ethics- both in yourself and others. your work must be meaningful; it must matter to you. you're friends call you dependable, and your belief makes you easy to trust. it also demands that you find work that meshes with your values. your work must be meaningful; it must matter to you.
4. Focus- you need a clear destination. lacking one, your life and your work can quickly become frustrating. each year, month, and even each week you set goals (soo true!). these goals then serve as your compass. focus is powerful because it forces you to filter and prioritize. focus causes you to be efficient however it also causes you to become impatient with delays, obstacles, and even tangents.
5. Individualization- you instinctively observe each person's style, motivation, how each things and how each builds relationships. this theme explains why you pick your friends just the right birthday gift. because you are a keen observer of other people's strengths, you can draw out the best in each person.
I really think that my themes describe me perfectly. Especially since I feel like the first 4 pretty much sum up my life. I am always thinking about my goals, life aspirations, and how to make my life meaningful as well as how I am going to get there. These things consume my thoughts on a daily basis.
I really loved the presentation that went along with our StrengthsFinder assessment because the Gallup representative talked about how to use our strengths to succeed. She gave us a quote during her presentation that I really like, and though I can't remember the exact words it went something along the lines of "working to improve upon your weaknesses will only bring them to a state of mediocrity at best. working to improve upon your strengths will allow you to excel in ways you never thought possible, taking your natural abilities from good to amazing." I really liked that because I think all to often we focus on what we're doing wrong and how we need to improve upon it when instead we need to be focusing on what we do well. Sure there are things we could improve on, but instead of focusing on how we are weak in certain areas we should be focusing on how using our strengths can get us to the same ultimate goal. Maybe later this week (if I have time) I'll post a two sentence description of each of the 34 themes and you can think about which 5 you might be.
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