You know there is a story behind the title of this post. When I was an admissions counselor I would travel to high schools and community colleges to talk to students and parents. It was important to have a professional, polished look and for me, that meant heels. By the end of the week my feet were exhausted from standing behind my recruitment table for hours each day. Which meant Friday was more casual and almost always included shoes with low or no heel. I would travel back to my office on Friday afternoons and the office’s student workers were not used to seeing me in this type of shoe and began calling it “Flats Friday.” A new tradition was born lol
Today I am rocking flats! Mostly because the hubs and I attended a friend’s wedding last night and there may or may not have been a toe vs cowboy boot incident. I thought I would share a couple of cute office appropriate flats you could add to your closet and also wear
Caslon ‘Aubry’ Pointy Toe Flats
Karl Lagerfeld Paris Embroidered Loafers
Vince Camuto ‘Celindan’ Cutout Ballet Flat
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Gallup’s Clifton StrengthsFinder is an assessment that identifies your natural talents. The assessment results provide your top 5 out of 34 talent themes. Results aim to help individuals better understand and describe their natural strengths. In addition to the results, there are resources online and books geared towards leaders, students, and even how to use your strengths in your faith community.
The idea is to use your time effectively to make your top strengths even stronger rather than focusing on getting better at something that doesn’t happen naturally. One of the actives in the workshop was to sign our name with our dominant hand and then try to recreate our signature exactly the same using our non-dominate hand. The point being that with dedicated practice over time you could successfully sign with your non-dominate hand, but would that be a good use of your time?
The workshops are great for groups and organizations to help members understand each others strengths and to also form a well rounded team. Great for hiring managers! You can learn more about the history of StrengthsFinder here.
Please don’t take this as bragging. I am a pretty confident person when it comes to the workplace. I know I can get any task done and done right. There are certain areas I feel I strive in and colleagues have recognized these both to me and to others. Based on my strengths, I have been sought out time and time again for assistance and to serve on committees. It’s even gotten me every job I have had since graduating college. However, on two separate occasions in the past year I have had those strengths verbally challenged in front of groups of my peers.
Needless to say, these brash statements caused me great self-doubt. It is my belief everyone has areas they lack confidence in and that’s ok, we are all a work in progress. To have the strengths I believed I possessed so firmly discounted and diminished with outbursts and humor was degrading.
Prior to taking the StrengthsFinder assessment, I took Myers Briggs Type Indicator and e-colors. Both described me, but StrengthsFinder is freakishly accurate and put my natural talents into relatable terms.
As I mentioned above, after my strengths were called into question I felt lost. My thoughts quickly evolved to, “maybe my abilities aren’t so great after all.” It wasn’t until I took the StrengthsFinder assessment and attended a workshop that I fell in love with my talents again. My top 5 talent themes so accurately describe who I am it became undeniable I was good at those things others had made me doubt.
Participants were told to display their strengths where they could be see, on your resume, and use the strengths terms. Receiving my talent themes solidified my self-confidence and any time I feel doubt creeping in I read my strengths. It reaffirms how valuable I am and reminds me I cannot perform all 34 talent themes well, but others have strengths to compliment mine. I believe StrengthsFinder is a great resource and even had a workshop done in my growing office to better understand each other.
My Strengths: Harmony, Achiever, Intellection, Deliberative, and Focus
You can take the assessment here.
To those who read regularly, I want to say sorry for the silence here. If you follow me on Twitter I was still pretty active over there. My personal life has been slightly crazy and my head and heart just weren’t in the blogging mode.
Speaking of Twitter, when I first started Lexi & Lady I shared a lot of my favorite new recipe finds. Out of respect for other’s work if I come across a new recipe the hubs and I enjoy I will share it on Twitter. I may link something here, but I doubt there will be many posts dedicated to a recipe find. So hop on over to Twitter and follow me!
This weekend I am visiting Magnolia Market in Waco with a friend so I’m super excited! Until next post…xoxo Becca
Becca
born and raised Texan
Hi all and welcome to my cozy little place in the blogosphere. My name is Becca and I'm a born and raised Texan. After college I got married. Got a puppy. Got a house. And then I decided I wanted to share daily life, struggles, ambitions, and everything in between.
