What's Your Identity?

Many people have been asked to describe themselves in just a few words multiple times throughout their life. It seems like such an easy task; however, when it comes down to it, how do you know which words to choose? Do you talk about your physical appearance? Or what about what is on the inside. I know that I have personally struggled to find words that accurately describe myself, time and time again, due to the fact I am not just five words. After taking the High5 assessment, it gave me five very accurate and strong words to represent myself as a person.

If you go to high5test.com, you can take a personality-type test that can give you 5 different and unique words to describe yourself, especially ones you've never thought of. I had to take this assessment for one of my classes, but I thought it was super cool and I wanted to share it in case anyone else had interest as well. This assessment ordered five different traits to describe myself, after taking a test of 100 personality based questions.

Going bottom to top, the fifth word that is used to describe me is “Coach”. At first I was confused. I know I’m an athlete and a player a part of a team, but I’m not coaching anyone, so what does being a coach even mean? After taking a deep look into the description, it told me that my objective is to develop people's potential. I began thinking about this quite a bit.

Looking back to the beginning of 2020 alone, I realized how much I was trying to help people in areas they wanted to improve. For example, two of my neighbors are in high school, and they are aware that I am attending Olivet College to play soccer. They asked me, a collegiate athlete, if I could help train them, since we were in the middle of the pandemic and didn’t have much else to do anyway. I took this as an opportunity to both help myself as a player, but help them as well. By the time we were able to leave our houses again after months, you could see a big difference in their endurance, ball control and even confidence.

Above being a coach, my fourth trait is “Winner”. This trait, right off the bat, was no surprise to me, whatsoever. Not even one week ago, my childhood best friend told me that she feels instantly more competitive walking into my parents house, regardless of what we’re doing. Whether I’m playing in a sports game, a card game, or a video game, I get genuinely furious if I don’t win. This is how my entire family is, so it’s not a shock that I’m described to have an objective to compete with others to win. My entire life I’ve always wanted to be the fastest, the strongest, and the best at everything.

The third trait to describe me, shifts from a “wanting to be the best” aspect to something a little deeper. The next trait I was described to be, is “Thinker”. This one confused me quite a bit. Everyone thinks, so why is it so special for me? I know my mind tends to wander quite often and I go into a spiral of all these random thoughts. So one minute I’m thinking about if I want to get more peanut butter at the store, to why horseshoes don’t hurt the horses. I knew that this isn’t what this trait was trying to tell me though. I suppose I’m still not sure why this was my third trait, and that I should keep thinking about why it is.

My second highest trait is “Optimist”, the funny thing is, I was in a really bad mood from a really bad day when I received my results. Most of the time however, I have been known to be a ray of sunshine, a happy little ball of light, the half-full friend in most situations. I know for a fact I have had plenty of bad days when I don’t want to be happy and I don’t want to look on the bright side. I hate feeling that way, which is why I try not to as often as possible. Just today I was stressed about homework and other tasks I needed to get done. I was stressed about the limited time I had to accomplish everything before bed. Instead of plummeting in a hole of complaints, I realized, I have so many other good things going for me right now to be positive about. For example, I get to go home tonight until next semester and just be with my family and dogs. That alone, flipped my whole day around. I choose to focus on the one good thing instead of all the bad, and it keeps me positive. I definitely agree with being an optimist.

My number one trait from the test, was the number one thing I get complimented for all the time, “Empathizer”. Just to give a little back story, my big sister is my role model. She is everything I hope to be one day. She is insanely successful and to me, perfect. The one thing she tells me all the time that she's jealous of, is my big heart and my empathy for others. I work so well with people's emotions, my friends have called me their personal therapist. I couldn’t count the number of times I have stayed up late since middle school, or even pulled an all-nighter, to help a friend going through a hard time. If someone I love cries, I cry. It’s as simple as that. I have the ability to step into other people's shoes and I can help them that way.

Overall I believe my high5 assessment was extremely accurate. Top to bottom it covered me as a person better than I ever could’ve on my own. Certain words like “thinker” or “coach”, I never would have thought to describe myself, but they fit extremely well. At the end of the day I’m proud of my results. Empathizer, optimist, thinker, winner, and coach, are five brilliant words to describe who I am today.

The whole test and results may seem really cheesy, and some people might not care. I just thought that with everything going on in the world (COVID-19, politics, school, work, stress, etc.) that this one little thing could makes someone's day, just knowing what they're good at in life.