Responsibility

Strength #3: Responsibility

If you were in school with me and we had to do a group project, I was that person in the class who would almost prefer to do it myself.  Why?  That has to do with my third strength: responsibility.

When it comes to doing what I said, I'll get it done, if I don't...well, lets just say I'd owe you about a million favors to make up for my slacking.  According to Strength Finders 2.0 when responsibility is high you, "take psychological ownership for anything you commit to, and whether large or small, you feel emotionally bound to follow it though to completion."  I can see this strength really play out a lot in my life, almost to the point where it is one of my MAJOR downfalls in my personal life.

Having a high responsibility is excellent while at work.  When I commit to doing something, 9 times out of 10 I'm going to make sure it's done, when it needs to be done.  When I do fail to complete something, I'll be the first to admit that I didn't follow through, and usually start beating myself up over it until I'm able to make amends or right the wrong.  As I said, this is great in a work environment, and even when I was in school, however, as I mentioned before, I would be the person in the group project to make sure it got done.  But I often would have my responsibility strength placed on the others in my group as well.  If I felt like some didn't do work or that their work was only half complete, I would pick up that slack, and then inform the instructor to this.  I feel that you need to be responsible for your actions as well.

Responsibility is great, but as I said, it has become a major downfall as well.  For example, when I take on responsibility for a project I might overload myself.  I'll feel an obligation to say, "Yes" to almost anything that comes my way.  This, is not a good thing, because when I inevitably fail at completing all of these tasks I begin to beat myself down, and feel as though I am a failure.

I also will take on responsibility for things that I don't really need to or have responsibility for; this happens more in my personal life. Often times, if there is an issue, or problem at my house, I'll take blame, responsibility, for it, even if it wasn't my fault, or mine to deal with in the first place...but I also think this has to do with my next strength as well, Harmony (but that's for another time).

I need to continue to work on a balance in taking on and dealing with my responsibilities.