Describe yourself.

As a kid, this was one of the first essays of many to come, where you would describe yourself complete with your likes, dislikes and hobbies. Now, this has been upgraded to terms like your profile, your bio among others. Only this time the focus is on more professional and educational achievements not the individual per se.

While Creating my Life purpose statement, I struggled to answer the question of identifying my unique qualities considering that I hadn’t really paid much attention to things that describe me. I took the easy way out by asking my hubby to help with it; His first quality was that I was organized. That was just so hilarious, I couldn’t help laughing because just thinking of my untidy closet, being organized was the last quality I was expecting.

I knew I had to do this myself at least for myself before asking for external input. So I gave myself the task of identifying thirty (30) qualities that would describe me. Wow! That was a tall order, I knew it but I needed to get as much as I could even if I couldn’t get up to 30.

As I started to think about my assignment in my productive state, ideas started trickling in but I was still struggling to get to 10. I got a breakthrough moment only when I noticed I had written 2 conflicting qualities – unemotional (yes I put that) and empathy, then it hit me!

I have lots of roles I fill and I exhibit different qualities in almost every role. For instance, I am someone’s daughter, someone’s wife, a mum, sister, friend, neighbor, colleague, boss, business partner, teacher, acquaintance and many more – Tosan A.

All these roles bring out all the qualities that would describe Tosan A. Armed with this epiphany, my assignment became a breeze as I churned out over 40 qualities (not repeated) describing me.

Wow! Was I excited! Only one person, over 40 characteristics! I am amazed at God’s awesomeness and detail in creating me. I am excited because I also found out how some not-so-good qualities come in useful and vice versa. So I am heady and insistent which are very useful in getting the best results from my team.

Here’s a cheat sheet on some of the qualities that describe me – Tosan A. I believe it can help someone else who’s also struggling, but remember that there are more than 40 qualities out there so if yours is not on the list, feel free to include it in your list.

1. Friendly
2. Determined
3. Coordinated
4. Reserved
5. Cautious
6. Disciplined
7. Objective
8. Humble 
9. Heady
10. Playful
11. Loving
12. Strict/stern
13. Respectful
14. Helpful
15. Insensitive
16. Real
17. Trust-worthy
18. Steward
19. Excellence oriented
20. Empathy
21. Straight-forward
22. Pretty
23. Intelligent
24. Hardworking
25. Business-oriented
26. Christ-like
27. Courageous
28. Confident
29. Funny
30. Patient
31. Focused
32. Outspoken
33. Responsible
34. Sensible
35. Cynical
36. Generous
37. Efficient
38. Detailed
39. Passionate
40. Neat
41. Realistic
42. Loyal
43. Mushy/emotional
44. Impulsive
45. Punctual
46. Forgetful
47. Goofy
48. Reliable
49. Resourceful
50. Punctual
51. Thoughtful

By the way, my hubby meant to say I was organised at work – wink!

What qualities describe you? Why don’t you take some time, a few minutes, even an hour to think through the things that describe you and show yourself some love.