Lions, Beavers, Otters, and Golden Retrievers...

I recently took a personality profile. It is meant to help people understand what kind of personality ‘type’ they are so they can better learn about their strengths and weaknesses and how those relate to other people in their lives. It is a common profile that is used by Gary Smalley (The Two Sides of Love) and others.

The four personality types that it include are Lions, Beavers, Otters, and Golden Retrievers. They are categorized by animals to help you better understand the nature of the personality traits. Lions are leaders, dominant, they like to make the rules and tell other people what to do. Beavers are the organizers, they like things neat, and they like to know what the rules are so that they can follow them. Otters care about fun, they don’t have any concern for rules, if they are faced with the choice between a good time or work, they will choose the good time, and they have a ton of friends but they tend not to be very deep relationships. Golden Retrievers are all about relationships, they are compassionate and very sensitive to the feelings and emotions of others, they are loyal, and crave few but deep relationships.

There are obviously good and bad things about each personality type. Lions are leaders and get things done, but they also struggle intensely when things don’t go their way. Beavers are great administrators and organizers, but they don’t always remember to have fun. Otters are fun to be around and always good for a laugh, but they usually aren’t very neat or organized. Golden Retrievers are great friends to have but they don’t adapt well to change.

I took the test because I was very curious to see where I fell in the spectrum. The answer wasn’t as clear as I had hoped. I’m pretty much in the middle; a little more Lion and Beaver than Otter and Golden Retriever, but not by much.

However, I think that it provided enough information to help me as I plan out the next year (can you guess that type?). I want to develop certain aspects and learn to control others. I want to develop my lion side to be a good leader for my family and small group, and a good teacher to the kids at Mission. I really want to focus on the organizational aspects of the Beaver traits to get a handle on managing my home and my projects to get everything accomplished that I’m setting out to do. When it comes to my kids I think our relationships would benefit by integrating more Otter characteristics into our normal routine. For my friends and relationships, I would like to be more of a Golden Retriever and invest more in my good friends.

There is value in taking stock in your strengths and weaknesses. If you don’t know what they are it’s hard to use them or change them for the better. It will help you to shape your goals so that you develop your talents and discipline yourself through your weaknesses. I’m hoping that it helps make my goals for January 2011, my list of accomplishments for December.