In part I of this series, we focused on career assets that are your skills/knowledge and talents. Here in part II, we’ll take a look at your personal traits, which are career assets too.
Traits specifically describe how you do your work in the world. They’re adjectives that describe your personality or behavioral style.
A list of your traits might include words like: Self-Directed, Assertive, Persuasive, Adventurous, Innovative, and so on.
Create a list of your traits. You can find traits online, of course, but the best list I’ve ever seen is in the book, What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard Bolles. Choose what you think are your top five traits and then, if you dare, try to pick which of the five is your number one trait. This number one trait is your go-to trait. It’s how you tend to naturally behave most of the time, in most situations.
Warning: Be as honest as you can in this exercise. Resist the temptation to list traits you admire yet might not really represent your personality style. Also be aware of whether or not you “own” those traits you really do have but haven’t listed.
One way to get an authentic read on your traits is to ask others who know you well to help you, especially if you struggle to be objective about yourself. For example, being firstborn and having to step up when I was very young to help care for my three younger siblings, I’ve always seen myself as dependable and responsible. So, of course, those traits are on my list. But when my sister saw my list, she pointed out that I have a tendency to ignore my adventurous side since I didn’t include it as one of my top 5 traits. And she was right.
Another way to authenticate your traits is by taking an assessment like StrengthsFinder 2.0. The results of this particular assessment will show you your top 5 strengths, or what they call themes. Of all the assessments out there, I like this one best since it’s super accessible – and affordable. I like that it’ll give you some vocabulary that could be very helpful in figuring out YOUR personal brand.
In part three of this series, we’ll look at a couple of more ingredients to help you figure out your individual brand.