Self-discovery

Over the past few months, several opportunities I decided to participate in have a little unexpectedly taken a surprising turn. Towards what?

Well, first, many of you may remember back in April when I went to a financial planning conference for recent alumni at my university. I ventured back to my college campus on a Saturday morning hopeful to learn a little more about budgeting, saving options, and retirement planning. I also signed up for a financial mentor program where I first met with a mentor one-on-one and then in group mentoring once a month or so.

I also blogged last week about how I'm doing an internship with Careerealism.com via Twitter. The program is designed to not only teach us about branding a company but also about branding yourself.

OK, so get to the point.

This wasn't what I expected but both opportunities required a lot of thoughts and exercises involving self-discovery—and it's kinda fun and definitely an interesting process. I spoke in my church a couple months ago and one thing I mentioned is how self-fulfilling it can be to take personality tests and read the results and to say, "Yes, that's me. Yes. Yes. No, that's not me—to see yourself in the descriptions and gaining even a glimpse of deeper understanding about yourself.

(I was pretty excited when I learned that a couple people had read my Psychology of Wealth post and actually went out and read the book I mentioned, "Secrets of the Millionaire Mind.")

Last week in my internship, we each took little tests to help us determine a little more about ourselves. (These are all a part of the Careerealism University program—check it out for yourselves.) The first few focused on helping us prioritize some core values in life, e.g. friends/family, career, physical self, fun/recreation, finances. We also had to write statements about what our personal definition of success in each of these areas means. All of this will ultimately help us understand what role our career will have and how to balance the different areas successfully. 

The last part helped us define our interaction style (I'm a contemplator), our learning preferences (I'm visual, active, global), our work style (I'm half administrator, half reporter) and outline our passions and interests and unique gifts. The next few steps in the program will help us understand how these personal descriptions affect us in the workplace and how to find a work environment that meets our needs and styles.

P.S. If you are at all interested and join the Careerealism Facebook page, you'll get a free month in its private career network.

P.P.S. Careerealism just posted a new article covering more of these topics: