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7.3 Performing Initial Self-Assessments

What Beliefs, Interests, and Talents Best Describe You?

When you take the TypeFocus assessment described in A Closer Look: Career Self-Assessments,
you will explore your personal beliefs, interests, and talents. This is an excellent way for you
to learn more about yourself and how others see you. You can continue this exploration by
compiling a list of your answers to the following questions. Then review the list and record
what you learned from conducting this exercise.
• What did parents, guardians, teachers, or

friends praise you for in your past? Often,
other people in our lives recognized our
particular qualities early in our lives. When
you were younger, what types of activities
did others say you did particularly well?
Were you told you were a good listener or
able to draw well, make friends easily, learn
math quickly, or sing well?
• What lifelong interests or hobbies have you
had? For example, have you always enjoyed
caring for others or been fascinated with
puzzles or numbers?
• What did you do that earned you gold stars,
ribbons, or other awards at school or that TongRo Images/TongRo Images/Thinkstock
caused you to be criticized, punished, or Skills for which you received praise
penalized in ways such as sitting in a time- when young can serve you well in a

out or staying after school? Your teachers professional environment, too.
probably encouraged and rewarded you
for certain behaviors and penalized you for
others; both positive and negative feedback about your behaviors can give you clues
to your past tendencies and how you react to certain situations. Over time, you may
have changed some of the behaviors for which you were criticized or punished in the
past, but they still may be habits that you fall back on in times of stress. Reflecting on
these situations, did you learn anything about yourself from these positive and nega-
tive experiences?
• What particular positive characteristics about you did your parents or guardians cite
when they talked about you to others? Were you the quiet one, the smart one, the
comedian, the serious one, or the clever one in your family?
• What were you criticized for by parents, guardians, teachers, or friends in your past?

Just as other people point out traits about you they admire, they also comment on
traits they think could be improved. As a child, you may have been told that you
were overly detailed about issues. So you may have grown to think this was a fault
of yours when, in fact, it may make you an excellent investigator or technical writer.
What traits do you see as your faults? Can you think of ways these traits could be
beneficial to you in your work, or are they just bad habits you need to break? If they
can be beneficial, how can you use the criticism to your advantage and motivate
yourself?

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