StrengthsFinder for My Cat
I recently took a personality test for work, and when my results came back, I felt so SEEN. Naturally, when I looked up from my report and locked eyes with Junipurr, like a true convert, I immediately wanted to apply the truth of personality tests to her. After all, cats are people too, right? #PurrsonalityTest …
Let’s start with StrengthsFinder, which is built on the premise that it’s better if your self-improvement efforts focus on harnessing your natural strengths: “Our goal was to start a global conversation about what’s right with people. We were tired of living in a world that revolved around fixing our weaknesses…What’s more, we had discovered that people have several times more potential for growth when they invest energy in developing their strengths instead of correcting their deficiencies.” – Tim Roth, StrengthFinders 2.0.
There are 34 catalogued strengths in the StrengthsFinder paradigm. As Junipurr’s (totally objective) mom, I have to admit she has all the strenghts.
Ok, ok, more specifically: Activator, Command, Deliberative, Developer, and Empathy. (Each person/cat gets a shortlist of their top 5 strengths.) Let’s dive into the evidence:
1. Activator (p41) – “You are impatient for action. … Deep down you know that only action is real.” You want to see a textbook activator? Come to our house near Juni’s mealtime. This morning she took it to a new level upon discovering that she can use her bodyslamming expertise, which she has perfected in the past two years while mommy rudely closed the office door during Zoom meetings, to her auto kibble feeder. Yes, that’s right. She is now bodyslamming her kibble dispenser, which shocks the poor machine into giving her a kibble or two. It’s straight-up extortion, but we have got to take a minute to appreciate the ingenuity! The resourcefulness! The bias towards action!
2. Command (p61) – “Unlike some people, you feel no discomfort with imposing your views on others. On the contrary … once your goal is set, you feel restless until you have aligned others with you.” Juni when she read this was like:
Meow into sleeping FP’s face at mealtime. Sit on Mama’s laptop at playtime. Check and check! As all friends of Junipurr know – Babygirl knows what she wants, and she knows how to speak her mind, too.
3. Deliberative (p85) – “You are careful. You are vigilant. You are a private person.” Junipurr contains multitudes. Yes, she is sass and confidence, a ninja with furry paws. But like Master Sifu in KungFu Panda, she is also ever vigilant and prepared for imminent attack. I’m often impressed by her superpower to vanish at the first sign of mildly possible threat. Doorbell rings, whoosh, she’s flattened into a pancake under the sofa. The squirrel who lives in our backyard barks at her, whoosh, she’s hiding behind the long coats in the closet. A charter in a cartoon on TV looks in her direction – you know it, whoosh!
4. Developer (p89) – “You see the potential in others… You look for ways to challenge them. You devise interesting experiences that can stretch them and help them grow.” When she decides we’ve watched TV or tapped away on our laptop for too long, Juni will stage an intervention to reconnect us with play. And not just half-hearted, texting-with-one-hand play. As Diane Ackerman writes in Deep Play: “What is the difference between simple play and deep play? Simple play can take many forms and have many purposes, but it only goes so far. When it starts focusing one’s life and offering ecstatic moments, it becomes deep play.” Junipurr goes for ecstasy, folks.
5. Empathy (p97) – “You can sense the emotions of those around you. You can feel what they are feeling.” In one of the first Youtube videos I watched of Jackson Galaxy, he calls cats emotion sponges. Juni gives a slightly aloof appearance, but she is a lovebug in her core. Case in point: Fav Parent had a minor surgery earlier this year, and that night when we all piled up in bed, Juni uncharacteristically draped herself over FP (she usually tucks in right between us, the ham in our sandwich), right near the surgical site and began her gentle healing purring. Heart of gold, our Junipurr.
Have you been convinced yet to do a personality test assessment of your furbabies? Try out this totally unscientific but fun experiment and report back!
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