StrengthsQuest: Discover and Develop Your Strengths in Academics, Career, and Beyond

by Donald O. Clifton, Edward Chip Anderson, Laurie A. Schreiner (Contributor)

Students who use their natural talents achieve the most --- but they need to know what those talents are. StrengthsQuest includes the Clifton StrengthsFinder, an online assessment that reveals students’ top five themes of talent. And StrengthsQuest also helps students make the most of those talents.

Students and learners of all ages continually face the challenges of gaining direction, making decisions, and building self-confidence. Fortunately, the keys to successfully meeting these challenges — your own natural talents — already exist within you. Through these talents, you will produce your greatest achievements.

Over the course of 30 years, Gallup conducted millions of psychological interviews and identified 34 themes of talent that are indicative of success. In the StrengthsQuest program, Gallup offers you the opportunity to discover talents from your top five themes and build on them to achieve academic, career, and personal excellence. More than 100,000 students have benefited from the program.

Your quest starts with the Clifton StrengthsFinder, a 30-minute assessment that reveals your top five themes of talent.

This online assessment is your entryway to a variety of experiences that will help you discover your greatest talents and develop strengths. You’ll gain access to action items specific to your top themes, covering general academic life, study habits, relationships, and career. You’ll also be challenged to think about applying your talents for success in other settings, such as on projects and teams and in leadership.

StrengthsQuest was written by the late Donald O. Clifton, who was the former chairman of Gallup; coauthor of the bestseller Now, Discover Your Strengths ; and recognized as the Father of Strengths-Based Psychology and the late Edward “Chip” Anderson, who taught education, psychology, and leadership at UCLA and Azusa Pacific University. Revised portions of the text were written by Laurie A. Schreiner, who has taught psychology and higher education at Azusa Pacific University and Eastern University.

Your quest starts with the Clifton StrengthsFinder, a 30-minute assessment that reveals your top five themes of talent.

This online assessment is your entryway to a variety of experiences that will help you discover your greatest talents and develop strengths. You’ll gain access to action items specific to your top themes, covering general academic life, study habits, relationships, and career. You’ll also be challenged to think about applying your talents for success in other settings, such as on projects and teams, and in leadership.

StrengthsQuest was written by the late Donald O. Clifton, former chairman of Gallup, coauthor of the bestseller Now, Discover Your Strengths , and recognized as the Father of Strengths-Based Psychology and the late Edward “Chip” Anderson, who taught education, psychology, and leadership at UCLA and Azusa Pacific University. Revised portions of the text were written by Laurie A. Schreiner, who has taught psychology and higher education at Azusa Pacific University and Eastern University.

Genres: Nonfiction, Leadership, Business, Textbooks, Personal Development, School, Self Help

312 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Amanda Friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED this book! Oh. My. Goodness. First, I took the strengths test, and I loved figuring out what mine were! I am a college student, and since this book is geared towards college students, all the questions challenging me to get the most out of college inspired me. I can start picking what kind of career would suit my strengths. This book inspires me to be the best I can be, and achieve so much in the world. It explained and declared that everyone has talents and strengths, and that if we all were to live out of our talents and strengths, we would be more successful and fulfilled. I am completely satisfied with all the knowledge I gained from reading this book. No time wasted whatsoever! Not only do I know more about myself, but I can relate better to other people by pinpointing their strengths. I understand now that not everyone is like me, and just exactly how they are different. I am so impressed with this book! I feel alive and ready to conquer the world. This book has everything to do with improving the areas of career, college, and relating to people. Not to mention the inspirational "Let's Start a Revolution" chapter in the end. It pictured what a life where everyone learns their strengths and other's strengths would look like. I say bring it on!

[Semi-Academic Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Donald O. Clifton was an educational psychologist and one of the early proponents of positive psychology. His work has been integrated into the Gallup organization's Clifton StrengthsFinder that has now been made relatively famous by these other books: StrengthsFinder 2.0, Strengths Based Leadership Great Leaders Teams and Why People Follow, and Strengths Based Selling.

This book seems to be an interesting starting place, and using the $10 assessment that can be found at www.strengthsquest.com can get you this book for free in an electronic format. It also can, in it's reports, get you whatever information about your top five strengths that you could read in StrengthsFinder 2.0... or so it seems based upon my research thus far.

[Marlena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Take this assessment online. It will change your life!

My strengths: Learner, Discipline, Positivity, Intellection, and Developer.

[Mccall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This books means very little without the 'personal perspective' which comes from taking the online assessment. Do yourself a favour and take the "test" before reading the book.

[Barack Liu · Rating 4 out of 5]

410-StrengthsQuest-Donald Clifton-Psychology-2002

Barack
2022/03/19

StrengthsQuest, first published in 2002. Over 30 years, Gallup has conducted millions of psychological interviews and identified 34 talent themes that represent success. In the StrengthsQuest program, Gallup offers you the opportunity to discover talent from your top five topics and build upon them to achieve academic, professional, and personal excellence. Students who use gifts achieve the most—but they need to know what those talents are. StrengthsQuest includes the Clifton StrengthsFinder, an online assessment that reveals students' top five talent themes. And StrengthsQuest also helps students make the most of these talents.

Donald Clifton, born 1924 in Butte, Nebraska, US, died in 2003. He founded Selection Research, Inc., which later acquired Gallup, where he served as chairman. He led the development of Gallup's online psychological assessment CliftonStrengths. He was recognized by the American Psychological Association as the "Father of Strengths Psychology and Grandfather of Positive Psychology."

Table of Contents
1. The nature of strengths
2. Gaining direction for your quest
3. Affirming and celebrating your talents
4. Relationships from the strengths perspective
5. Insights into strengths development
6. Considering strengths when planning your education
7. Developing academic strengths in college
8. Developing leadership strengths in college
9. Becoming your own best educator and learner
10. Strengths and career planning

Human exploration of the spiritual world is no less than the exploration of the material world. So despite all the difficulties in exploring the spiritual world, we still create many methods of analyzing the mind, analyzing the hypotheses of the character. Some fine, some rough. In Strength quest, the author divided " natural talents" into 34 types, and tried to find out the top 5 types with the greatest weight in a person.

Each of us may have certain gifts, which are like seeds with great potential. However, whether these talents can become acquired advantages that can generate social value requires deliberate training and cultivation. There is an element of luck in this process. Some people may have natural talents, but for various reasons, they may become mediocre engineers rather than amazing writers.

Everyone is different, and various "talents" are often double-edged swords. It is worth thinking about how we can use these innate characteristics and try to avoid their shortcomings. When we study the characteristics of successful people, we may find that some of these characteristics also exist in many people who have achieved ordinary achievements. From traits to achievements, just like from concept to practice, there is a gap that needs to be filled.

Before we reach adulthood, guardian actors take the role of discovering our traits and nurturing them as much as possible. In adulthood, although the development of traits is not as rapid as in adolescence, we must learn to be our own teachers, discover our talents, and convert our talents into advantages that can generate social value.

The so-called advantage refers to the trait that we can achieve a higher input-output ratio, and this trait exists for a long time, not from time to time, or requires special conditions to produce. The advantage is the result, and the talent is the premise. The types of talents may be too numerous to enumerate. The author just selected 34 basic elements according to his own understanding and covered as much as possible without repetition.

Life may be like a script kill, and everyone gets a different script. The background and talent skills of each character are also different. The sooner you figure out what your strengths are and make the most of them; the sooner you figure out what your weaknesses are and avoid making up as much as possible, the more likely you are to win the game.

Talent is innate, we need to turn talent into an operational advantage, and then turn the advantage into social success in a specific practice. If life cannot give full play to one's own natural advantages, but simply struggles and struggles to live by pure hard work, then life will undoubtedly be bitter.

The Greek proverb says, "Know thyself". We do various psychological assessments in order to better understand and understand ourselves, so as to consider how we should develop ourselves better. We do this not only to make our "machine" work more efficiently but also to gain more positive emotions. If you repeatedly fail in areas you are not good at, you may gradually destroy your information. The strong are able to achieve self-confidence from the bottom of their hearts because they are used to winning.

[Mamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like the philosophy on building upon one's strengths in order to succeed and find happiness and purpose in life. It wasn't the most amazing book in the whole wide world (I would have liked to find out even more about my specific strengths and maybe have more space for writing responses/brainstorming.). Also, I think the layout could have been improved and been made more interesting with a better flow. Overall, though, the book a great resource to find out more about yourself and the best way to reach your highest potential. It also changed my perception of others by gaining a more positive, individualized lens while also gaining a better understanding of how various personalities work together and sometimes clash because of misunderstandings. It will be interesting to go forward and see what I find out about the people around me and the choices I have ahead based on the perspective I gained from this online test and book. Personally, I felt like my survey results were pretty much spot on! (Input, Intellection, Learner, Positivity, Developer)

[Citlalli · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a student in high school who is looking for a purpose and preparing to graduate high school, I needed to find something that motivated me more. Donald Clifton does an amazing job in helping you discover and prepare you for the real world and find your strengths and how you can find them and put them into action. I truly enjoyed reading this book it changes your perspective on things and sees it from other perspectives. I would recommend this book to teachers, students in high school, college students, and graduates. Also, Clifton provides a test for you to take before the start of the book to learn about your weaknesses and strengths then in the book he dives into explaining each one depending on your results. This book educates and informs you so much you gain a lot from it.

[Svetlana Kurilova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great addition to the strength finder results. This book emphasizes the importance of the recognition of personal strengths and how to nurture them building skills and knowledge based on the natural talents. The discussion of the main characteristics of 34 main strength themes throughout the book made me appreciate how different we all are and how useful it is for us as individuals as well as a whole society.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Read for New Student Experience class)

My Top 5 strengths are: Input, Achievor, Relator, Discipline, and Intellection.

A truly informative book, as well as uplifting. Along with the online assesment, StrengthsQuest shows you how you are as a person and the strengths you most commonly (and unknowingly) use, and how you can use those strength to advance and better your life. It's an insightful eye-opener.

[Jenna Nestrovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great resource for young adults heading off for post-secondary or employment.

I wish I would have read this 20 yrs ago when I entered the world of 'adult-ing'. By now, I have learned most what my talents are like by trail and error, and a whole lot of reflective experience. How much further along I could have been with this guide.
I recommend that every ten read this in their first year of college.

[Rebecca (booksandbreggs) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this book for school. It was eye-opening, and helped me look at some of the strengths I have, and how to use those in finding a job after graduation.

[Jenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Strengths Quest: Discover and Develop Your Strengths in Academics, Career and Beyond is a book (and online test) that seeks to help people determine and develop their strengths. Having researched a number of successful people, the authors boiled down various personality types/strengths into 34 themes. Once you take the online test, you are told your top five themes and then are given insight into the characteristics, how you can develop those themes, how those themes can help you throughout college and, finally, what types of careers these themes lend themselves to, or how you can apply these themes to various aspects of your given job.

I was given this book by a friend at church, who thought it might be helpful as I struggle to figure out what vocational direction I should pursue. Once I got around to reading the book, I immediately discovered that you need to be online to take this involved test. That stopped me from reading further, since I am rarely on the internet and reading a book at the same time. Once I finally took the test (my results: Harmony, Includer, Input, Belief and Responsiblity), it took me awhile to once again pick up the book. I think this is one of my major frustrations about the book - it didn't draw me in and help me to want to read it, and I think it was exacerbated by this online portion.

The actual writing of the book was not compelling, and kind of reads like a PowerPoint presentation. The book is also skewed heavily toward those beginning college, which I felt was a detriment. Furthermore, the the results from the online test are huge portions of the written content of the book, but not really further elaborated upon. I suppose one thing that could be a positive is that if you were concerned to read only about your 5 themes (and not also read about the remaining themes), you could easily read through this 300-page book in a day (I figured this out late).

However, the book and the test weren't all bad. I think that their idea to focus on your strengths rather than your weaknesses in order for self-improvement and vocational and academic focus is both interesting and positive. Additionally, I do feel like the results of their test (ie, my "themes") fit with who I consider myself to be, and it was helpful to have some high-level examples of how those themes fit within society, specifically through certain careers.

[Kristen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book and completed the assessment for my final project in a Career Counseling course I was taking. This book and the assessment that accompanies it are a wonderful tool for gaining personal insight into your strongest strengths and talents. This book encourages positive evaluation of self, much like positive psychology and once your strengths are identified, it offers suggestions on how to build and refine those talents. The author of this book believes that those who succeed in life, do so mostly because they find what they are good at and they run with it instead of trying to be something they are not. I will be recommending this book to students who wish to learn more about what their strengths are and I will be encouraging those I am close to to use this resource to become more successful in all the things they try in life. Great book!

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally got around to finishing this one. Overall a very good introduction to using Strengths in educational settings. I do think I learned more about the 34 themes and got ideas for how to facilitate groups and individual mentoring sessions, but I still don't feel like I am an "expert" - but one of the beauties of Strengths is that you don't have to be an expert on all 34, just need to develop an understanding of your own top 5 so that you can have authentic relationships and discussions with others. A good read for anyone interesting in learning more about Strengths.

[Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was unsure of this book when our professor assigned it for our honor's seminar. I ordered the book, took the test, and was surprised to see my top strengths.

This book helped me tremendously and more than I ever thought it would. Nobody thinks they need a book like this but I would recommend it to anyone who wants to go far in life. I will always keep this book and read through it periodically. I learned a lot about myself and others in class based on our strengths, and of course, our teacher.

[Adam Demers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I believe in the results of the StrengthsQuest book and I also believe that most would benefit from understand their personal top 5 signature theme. This book is geared to college aged students and they are the demographic that I believe would benefit most from this book. I recommend book only if you are able to take the StrengthsQuest test online, so be carefully if you are buying this book used because the code that comes with the book might already be used.

[Johnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have spent most of my life trying to work on the things I perceived myself to be lacking in. There's a time and a place for this, but Strengthsquest taught me that it's also just as important, if not more, to focus on what I am naturally good at and use that as a foundation for my life work. This book was INCREDIBLY helpful in me finding my strengths and gave me a blueprint for building a life and career upon them.

[Dawn Rendell · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting take on skill development. The basic premis is that, if we focus on what we are good at, we can improve those skills by 80%. If we focus on what we are bad at, we can only improve those skills by 20%. To be honest, I'm reading it for work, but it's kind of interesting. My strengths are empathy, communication, ideation, input, and intellection. :)

[Jacqueline · Rating 4 out of 5]

StrengthsQuest is more informative and more useful than its cousin 'StrengthsFinder 2.0'. It is geared toward students and includes helpful suggestions/recommendations for developing one's Strengths. Also, includes access to a website with additional resources. Assessment is sweet. Delve into the assessment results and accompanying materials.

[Stephanie]

StrengthsQuest in an entryway to a variety of experiences that will help you discover your greatest talents and develop your strengths. I took the Clifton StrengthsFinder and my top 5 strengths are:

Analytical, Responsibility, Deliberative, Harmony, Consistency

[Tiffany Ingle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of all of the strengths books, I feel like this one has very meaty information about what to do with your new knowledge of strengths and some theory behind everything that offers guidance for building talents into strengths.

[Ambrose Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much is written to tell you what is wrong with you. Here is the book that tells you what is right and why. Not only that, but you learn what your strengths are. How very positive! I highly recommend this book and lifestyle!

[David Kemp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Designed for college students; I sure wish I had read it back in day. However, I'm not sure I would have taken it as seriously back then. However, I took it seriously now.

Being able to take the Clifton StrengthsFinder test is worth the price of the book.

[Angela]

Finally finished this book I started in 2011. A good POSITIVE start for the new year!

[Kevin Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is life changing. It will completely redirect your life in ways that were otherwise unimaginable.

[Chloe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not gona be helpful unless you spend extra money on the website to do the test.

But the test result only helps a bit.

Good way to know more about yourself but that's about it.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

The results were interesting - but dull reading.

[Navasota ISD · Rating 5 out of 5]

Available for checkout at NELC.

[Robert Erickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent guide to understanding inate talents and how to apply them for academic, career and life success.