I Took Strengths Profile Three Times — Here's What Grew, Shifted, and Refused to Leave

From Strength to Strength: How My Profile Has Evolved (and What That Means for You)

Have you ever taken a psychometric tool and filed it away, convinced it captured “who you are” forever?

That was me after my first hit way back in 2003!

The wonderful thing about the Strengths Profile is that it is a living tool because people and environments change. In this article, I reflect on my last three assessments and reports, from 2021 to yesterday.

It’s like looking back at an old photo of yourself and thinking, “Wow, I remember exactly how I felt at that time.”

Retaking the Strengths Profile after a few years feels exactly like that; instead of noticing a haircut or fashion choice you’ve outgrown, you observe how your energy, focus, and identity have shifted.

A 3-Year Journey of Growth and Alignment

Reviewing my Strengths Profile snapshots from September 2021, August 2023, and May 2025, it's powerful to see just how much has evolved — and how much has become clearer.

Our strengths aren’t fixed; they evolve with you. As your life, work, and identity grow, so does your relationship with your strengths. Here’s why that matters for me and for anyone committed to ongoing growth.

The Strengths Profile: Not a Personality Quiz, But a Compass

Let’s start with what doesn’t change: The Strengths Profile measures 60 strengths using four categories:

• Realised Strengths – what energises you and what you use regularly.

• Unrealised Strengths – energising but underused.

• Learned Behaviours – what you do well but find draining.

• Weaknesses – lower performance, lower energy.
  

What changes is how those strengths show up in your life. When you revisit the tool over time, you gain more than data — you obtain a map of your evolution.

My Three Snapshots: What Changed (and What Stayed)

No. 1 Realised Strength

• Sep 2021—Narrator: I was all about telling stories, selling hard, and speaking to anyone who would listen.

• Aug 2023 - Writer: My focus pivoted to written thought leadership: blog posts, frameworks, and developing the exercises and IP at the heart of my business.

• May 2025 - Equality: I now lead with values-driven impact, championing fairness, care, and inclusive design.

1. Narrator → Writer → Equality

• 2021 (Narrator): Top strength. I thrived on spoken storytelling workshops, conversations, and webinars. Words in the moment. I was new to full-time coaching, so I was probably talking too much and not listening hard enough.
  
  

• 2023 (Writer): My hallmark strength shifted to crafting written content and deepening the creative process: long-form articles, coaching materials, and teleprompter-style scripts. Writing became both my craft and my product. Much of the post-session support in coaching is also done over WhatsApp and email. Outside of work, I also started working on a novel!
  
  

• 2025 (Equality): Now, I centre fairness and inclusion in every program and piece of content. Equality isn’t just a value; it’s my leading strength, informing how I design workshops and coach individuals and teams. It embodies my purpose-driven approach: to elevate people through understanding, strengths, and inclusion. It's not just what I do — it's how I choose to lead.
  
  

2. Innovation’s Arc: From Front-Line to Supporting Role

• 2021 & 2023: “Innovation” was in my Realised quadrant, driving new client offerings and experimenting with formats; exploring my new career and business.
  
  

• 2025: It’s moved to Unrealised. Why? My focus has shifted from forging new paths to deepening impact, letting others innovate while I facilitate their breakthroughs. I need to be aware that not allowing myself the opportunity to innovate will also dampen my energy and happiness in the medium term.
  
  

3. Learned Behaviours: Letting Go of What Drains

• 2021: I leaned on “Detail” and “Strategic Awareness” heavily, often over-organising and micromanaging.
  

• 2023: Still there, but I began outsourcing and automating routines. So they’d disappeared from the ‘top’ strengths in this quadrant, allowing space for others like Incubator and Optimism, which are relevant to the journey of my coaching practice.
  

• 2025: Detail and Strategic Awareness live again in my Learned Behaviours quadrant, tools I call on when needed, rather than default modes. This frees me to lean into high-energy strengths like “Enabler,” which moved from unrealised in 2021 to realised in 2025, yay for me, and “Humour,” which in 2021 was a learned behaviour as I was using it to mask some trauma and was exhausting. Now, it’s my secret weapon for growth waiting to be leveraged.

Why This Evolution Matters

1. Life and Career Change: As your role or personal priorities shift, some of your strengths will, too.
   

2. Intentional Development: Spot overused strengths before burnout; then rebalance.
   

3. Purpose Alignment: Strengths like “Equality” are emerging on top. I’m living my values, not just my skills.
   
   

What This Evolution Shows

• I’ve moved from expressing identity (Narrator) to creating structure and thought leadership (Writer) to championing purpose and inclusion (Equality).
  

• These shifts reflect the broader arc of my coaching business: from personal clarity to content creation to systemic impact.
  

• Interestingly, Writer and Narrator remain strong constants, showing the ongoing importance of communication, no matter the form or function.

Think of it as tending a garden: some strengths blossom nonstop, some lie dormant until the season is right, and others need pruning so the real stars can shine.

Unrealised Strengths: The Space Where Growth Begins

Unrealised strengths are like the supporting cast just waiting for a lead role. They're skills that energise you, but you’re not using them as much as possible. These are often where the most tremendous growth, career shifts, and even identity pivots begin.

Your unrealised strengths are the next chapter, not leftovers.

These capabilities light you up but aren’t yet front and centre in your work or life. Think of them as your “next-level”, the traits that will drive your growth if you make the space to use them.

They’re often values-driven or future-focused skills that require the proper context or confidence to activate.

Revisiting them over time gives you a roadmap for aligned growth, not just more output. Sometimes a strength moves into the unrealised space simply because we’re shifting focus. Other times, it signals that something we love is being underused, and we’re ready to change that.

If you’re looking for where to grow next, this quadrant is gold. When working with clients who are looking for a new role, I often suggest using unrealised strengths as a checklist for the job description, culture, manager, and team to sensecheck that it's going to be REALLY right for them and not just support the ego with a change in job title and bump in pay.

So, with Improver, Competitive Change Agent, Organiser, Humour, Innovation, and Compassion as my most recently identified unrealised strengths, here’s what I am thinking about…I’m going to focus on three for the next six months.

1. Improver – Making things better, constantly

There is potential for enhancement everywhere. Where can 10% improvements be made? I have burned a fortune over the last three years on marketing experiments and am beginning to become more refined and focused in my approach. As the tools I have developed get used repeatedly with clients, what am I learning? How did they land? Where can I update materials or change how I am using them for greater impact?

2. Competitive – Wanting to win, be the best, or set the standard

This isn't about ego, it’s about drive. I feel most alive when there's a challenge or benchmark. It’s probably about time I set some targets for myself. Interestingly, my decision to jump into the 75 Hard challenge is perhaps my subconscious getting me to become competitive with myself. The more I am around Strengths, the more self-aware I have become.

3. Humour – Bringing lightness, wit, and fun into the moment

A hidden gem. This strength lifts others and boosts connection, especially in complex or deep conversations. Truthfully, I have probably been a bit serious with myself over the last 12 months - as any business owner would know, it’s tough making payroll (even when it’s just for yourself), as the business matures, it’s time for me to have more fun with it.

I am also incredibly excited to start innovating again, ideating a new business project outside coaching.

Want to Work With Your Unrealised Strengths?

Here’s how to begin:

• Pick one that stands out—ask yourself, “What would it look like to use this more this month?”
  

• Pair it with a realised strength to support it. (For example, use Empathic to guide your experiments with Compassion.)
  

• Set a micro challenge. One small action per week is enough to activate momentum.
  

• Reflect after 30 days. Has it started to shift into the realised quadrant of your life?

Key Takeaways for Your Next Profile Check-In

• Revisit every 12–24 months. Don’t let results gather dust—use them as a compass.
  
  

• Watch for emerging values (like Equality in my latest profile) that signal deeper purpose.
  
  

• Adjust your focus: double down on energising strengths; partner or delegate on draining ones.
  
  

• Celebrate the shifts. Each change is proof of growth.