Monday, May 25, 2009

Who do you think you are ?

From my experience, I've found that the best Career you can get into - is one where you are using your natural God-given gifts and abilities in an area that makes you feel energised, rather than drained. Of course, study, work experience and life experience also play a major role -otherwise you wouldn't be studying.


I started my Career making shock-absorbers for cars on an assembly line for a year. The money was good but I have a very active mind that I have to keep busy - so you can guess how much I loved that job. My work in Universities and a Primary School are a lot more enjoyable and 'down my line' so to speak.

So what's my point? Well - some of you may wonder whether you are doing the right study for the right job and others of you have no doubt. Of course there are shades of gray.

So for you who are wondering and for you who are a little interested, I'm giving you links to free online 'personality tests' as a tool to define or refine "who you think you are" on the assumption that if you are a square block you will be best to fit in a square hole, not a circle.

Have fun with these. A couple ask for an email address; just use your UniSA address.

Remember that these tests will only output what you put in. I tried them and found them fairly accurate. So be honest - who you really are, not what you wish you were!


Personality Test at Team Technology


The results will come up in a myers-briggs format with an explaination. I'm an ENFJ (which I already knew through other tests I'd done years ago) and it came up accurate. Here are what the results look like:

HumanMetrics Jung Test


The next one I found fairly accurate is the HumanMetrics Jung test - the bonus is that after the test there is a link which gives you a few brief suggestions of suitable careers - I also found that fairly accurate considering the briefness of the test.
ColorQuiz.com

This one 'freaked me out' a little because it is based on choosing colours. Interestingly, I still found the results fairly accurate. So, if you like something different, give it a try:


Have you found this interesting or helpful?

This next round of tests are for Spiritual Gifts that is, God given gifts that work best in a Christian community for the building up of each other. I'll leave you the links for this round but if you are not sure where you stand with spiritual gifts - give these a try ( I personally haven't tried them - but I have done similar ones which were helpful):

Online tests:
http://www.kodachrome.org/spiritgift/

http://www.churchgrowth.org/analysis/index.html

Download Word Document:

www.agapeco-op.org/downloads/SpiritualGiftsAssessmentTool.doc

and finally the best test of all is what God thinks of you. Make sure you have a look at this site before you go:

http://www.ficm.org/whoiam.htm

cheers

Tim


Monday, May 11, 2009

Money and other stuff



$$$Money$$$

Well you must have landed from outer space if you haven't noticed that the last year has been a financial upheaval for many...and from today ahead there is more to come...

As students, I'd suspect that many of you are not eating caviar by a pool at the moment, so I thought I'd give you a couple of links about Money and what the Bible says.

You hear people say "money can't make you happy" which tells me that those people have never been in a situation where the bills and costs of life far outweigh the means to pay for them. So, I disagree on one count. A certain amount of money -will- make you happier - if you are doing it tough. You need a consistant source of income that meets the basics, so that you can get on with your other life callings and purposes.

However, money is only a tool for trading and nothing more. Forget about status and the dog eat dog side of business. So you can buy new toys? Good for you.

There is even a 'prosperity' side of Christianity that talks up getting rich through the Bible - well, someone forgot to tell Jesus that - he lived on the basics only.

So, perspective with money is very important. And getting the Bible's view on it can be quite freeing from the worlds merry-go-round with money. So, have a look at these links and think and pray about what it might mean for your own life. And if you are struggling financially don't forget to ask God for what you need, it may arrive in a way that money can't buy, so be open to His way of doing things. It might involve money it might not -that's up to God:

An article called "Making Finacnical Decisions" from an interesting site called Crown Ministries

A few articles on Money and the Bible:


And this video from Dr Charles Stanley "The proper place money has in a Christian's life" - he is American, he looks like a 1980's preacher, but if you can get past that; what he has to say is very good:






Keep God in the loop when you are dealing with money - He owns everything anyway, so talk with him about it.


- Tim O