Excitement - Possible Strengths

Do you have these strengths? Do you show excitement readily? If not, how strongly does this factor apply to you?

• Spontaneity - You are quick to take action. You like surprises, even if they disrupt your plans. You are willing to drop what you are doing when a new priority comes along that you find interesting. Your colleagues admire your ability to muster a strong burst of energy to break through bottlenecks quickly. Less spontaneous people will find surprises disruptive and annoying. They want to think awhile about how to tackle unexpected challenges before they are comfortable taking action.
• Liveliness, animation - You are fun-loving and talkative, conveying a sense of humour and bringing energy to a task. You energize others to go along with your own bursts of action. If you are not so lively, you will be quieter and more deliberate in your approach to tasks, perhaps even showing your annoyance at the need to change your priorities suddenly.
• Enthusiasm - Whether you are lively or not, you are generally very positive about everything you get involved in provided it is not too routine or detail orientated. Others see you as having a ''can do'' attitude, a belief that no problem is insurmountable. You relish a challenge and you throw yourself into it. Less enthusiastic people convey a sense of reluctance to commit themselves emotionally to an unexpected challenge. They tend to express doubt or reasons why something cannot be done.
• Adaptability - You like improvising. When faced with an obstacle or a need to take a novel approach, you are among the first to suggest a way forward. You see things from a fresh perspective, enabling yourself and others to recover quickly from setbacks. You see change as stimulating, fun. If you are less adaptable, you will take more time to get motivated to change. You stick with proven approaches for a longer time, not quickly thinking of novel ways of tackling problems which you find more annoying than stimulating.
• Risk taking - You are confident making important decisions where either the risk or the cost of failure is significant. You feel that there is nothing wrong with learning from your mistakes and that you are more likely to succeed anyway as not. If you are a bit risk averse, you will take more time to make decisions where you are unsure of the outcome or the consequences of failure. You will want to get your facts straight before deciding and take steps to minimize the chances of failure.
• Optimism - This is like being enthusiastic and taking risks, except that it is more of a steady state. If you are an optimistic person, you generally feel positive about your work and life, thinking that things will work out for the best somehow. You are quick to see the benefits and positive side of problematic situations. If you are less optimistic, you will tend to think that things will go wrong if they can. You might be a bit of a worrier and hence regularly voice doubts and concerns. You will see the negative side of situations more readily than the positive side.
• Task juggling - You will enjoy juggling several priorities at once. Having a lot of things on the go at once is exciting for you. If you are not so inclined, you will prefer to finish one thing at a time, finding too many things to be a bit disorientating or confusing.

Potential Pitfalls

• Organization - doing less planning and organization.
• Perseverance - getting bored with long or routine jobs, being better at starting than finishing such tasks.
• Detail - overlooking details in your speed to do something.
• High error rate - hasty decisions leading to duplication and mistakes.
• Consistency - being enthusiastic and energetic sometimes and not very interested at other times.