The Strong Life Test for Women tells me my lead role is that of caretaker with an open heart, a chance of being consumed by others feelings and that I should be on or leading a team. My supporting role is teacher, with faith in others, who should be paid to facilitate the success of others.

The Primary Colors assessment meanwhile tells me I’m chocolate moose. That is deeply dependable, with strong logic and analysis skills; I like structure, have a drive to meet expectations, balance facts and intuition, am a good team player but may like to be an independent contributor. My percentages were 83% for curiosity, 57% for execution and 54% for leadership.

A look through Buckingham and Clifton’s 34 themes of strength had me nodding at belief, communication, connectedness, fairness, harmony, intellection, responsibility and significance.

Other than the fact that I like taking online tests what do all these results mean?

The Via Me survey seems accurate, as are those that I picked myself from Buckingham and Clifton’s list. The Strong Test, while also saying similar things is a very accurate picture of my parenting, but not so accurate for my self in terms of career. I found the questions spoke to the mother in me, not the more detached professional. The Primary Colors assessment, though I disliked the format of choosing between three answers, actually gave me the answer I liked best. This of course does not mean it’s accurate!

But how do these results relate to my daily life? Am I using my strengths to their full potential?

I have to say no.

And yes.

I’m team leader for domestic engineering with responsibilities as homework overseer, chief diplomat and timetable synchroniser. This all takes quite a bit of time, energy and headspace.

But I feel the need to stretch myself a more. The desire is there but the execution is clearly lacking. As in so many things I need to exercise the muscles before jumping straight into the race.

Slow and steady…

Fig tree in an old hamam wall

The overriding value in my life was, appropriately enough given the week that’s in it, love.

I was newly married. I was exploring the culture I’d married into. I was learning a new language. I was finding my way around a new town in an area of fascinating history. I had a routine with few responsibilities. What was not to love?

The last few years I have not been so productive my writing. The love has thankfully not changed (you could say we doubled it by doubling our numbers). In terms of time I still have plenty. What has changed is the amount of headspace I give to my responsibilities.

I take things seriously, in many cases too much so. I tend to sit down to write with a proviso in place; I only have x amount of time before I need to do y. This is not conducive to productivity.

Instead I need to retrain myself. I need to say I have x amount of time to write. And I should write with the same love I had all those years ago, before I knew anything about how you should write but when I knew everything about writing from the heart.

But

We have three 19 litre bottles under the stairs,

Another 8 litres inside the house.

Drinking water is delivered.

Wipes can be used for grubby hands and faces,

The kettles are all full.

We can cope till the water returns.

We wait…

But

Our heating is an enclosed fireplace, logs stacked since June.

The hob works with gas, the spare canister’s full.

Torches and radios are tested and working,

Phones are charged and spare batteries stockpiled,

Tea lights and candles are plenty.

We can cope till the electricity connects.

We wait…

But

Our mobiles can connect to the GSM network,

Television gives us subjective news.

No blogs, no Twitter, no Facebook,

No Skype, no forums, no international calls.

Boredom increases the tedium of waiting,

Concentration is gone down the tubes.

We can’t cope till the phone line is fixed.

Spot the birdie!

So when Week 5 was about personality I was delighted at the thought of exploring a little more. I did the Jung-Briggs-Meyer test and discovered I was an ISFJ. Basically I’m just like Queen Elizabeth II and Dr Watson. I am introvert, sensing, feeling and judging. I am a Guardian Protector, I like to be needed and to look after people. Interestingly I did this test in the evening, just having fed the family, the kids were playing, my husband was watching tv and all was right with the world. It seemed to fit nicely.

A few days later I decided to take the same test again. I forgot to note the numbers that indicate just how much I leaned towards each of these attributes. So just after lunch having spent the morning editing academic papers I did the test. And I got a different result. I was now an INTJ. An introverted, intuitive, thinking and judging Rational Mastermind. I’m just like Hilary Clinton and Professor Moriarty. That’s a turnaround, but having mentioned perfectionism  before and having studied science, it also seemed to fit.

Here’s the thing. Personality is a continuum and trying to divide that continuum into neat little boxes just doesn’t work.

The main aspects of my personality came through, being an introvert and judging (in the sense of being a planner, not of using the judgey wee bastard). But my information perception and processing are open to change.

I’d say that’s true for most of us.

This weeks action step for A Year With Myself was to describe your inner critic, something which I did last week. Or rather I described the inner critic’s uglier face, the inner begrudger.

So for my action step I thought I’d illustrate my inner begrudger instead.

Beware it ain’t pretty!

My inner begrudger

But we won’t talk about any of that, we’ll talk about television.

I first noticed it with cigarettes. I’m not sure when but they disappeared off our tv screens, generally replaced with a fuzzy patch. It was funny to see suave characters with smoke trailing from fuzzy patches. It didn’t always add to the atmosphere of the programme I’ll admit. Still CNBC-E had the best idea with their cartoon flower solution. (In an excellent piece of marketing you can now buy the censor flowers to disguise your own smoking!)

Charlie does love his flowers, eh, I mean cigars...

So a while after that I noticed that cigarettes weren’t the only things that disappeared, alcoholic drinks had vanished too. Again the credibility was stretched as we watched our downtrodden hero prop up the bar with a fuzzy drink to match his fuzzy cigarette.

Then last week while watching 48 Hours Eddie Murphy walked into a nude bar and was completely surrounded by fuzz. The women’s heads were the only things unobscured. Now my memory of 48 Hours was that there wasn’t really a huge amount on show anyway but all those fuzz patches got me fierce curious altogether.

Then once the shooting started the fuzz increased again. No gunshot wounds, no bleeding, no gore, just a shot and some fuzz. Last nights Steven Seagal movie ended in a fuzz of pink.

So cigarettes, alcohol, nudity and gore all banned from viewing on Turkish television. This was evening time and the kids had been sent to bed well in accordance with Metin Akpinar and Ibrahim Kutluay’s admonishments that 9.30 was time for bed. The movies had all started with the symbols telling us what to expect and what age it was suitable for. But still the television governing body RTUK decided that they knew better.

My final example is most worrying. A married couple reunited after a day of strife and worry run towards each other, relief visible, speeding up as they get closer and then snip.

They stand beside each other, no kiss, no hug.

No, that would be to give the little children a bad example, it could affect their spiritual development to witness affection between two married television characters.

It’s heating up the water slowly so the frog is boiled before he realises.

My roots are shallow. I left my homeland for another and though settled where I am now, I really can’t say what the future will bring. Our family could uproot at any time and settle elsewhere. We would take everything of value in our hearts and minds.

So what would my reflection be?

The wind perhaps. A very apt idea for the place I currently live. It’s ephemeral and yet powerful. It’s everywhere, it can erode, transport and deposit. It shifts water and sand and can even in the right circumstances grind rocks to dust.

Is it a reflection of me or a metaphor for how I feel at times; buffeted, uplifted, bowed?

Week 3 of A Year With Myself

What I am not...

My own inner critic is pretty close to a realistic thinker. At times it is a little too realistic and needs to lighten up and have some fun every now and again.

What I have to look out for is my inner begrudger…

My inner begrudger is a right pain. It is the voice that runs down every single aspect of anything I’ve done and at times even of who I am. There is nothing positive about it at all.

Begrudgery is a very Irish trait, though I’ve seen a little of it in Turkey too. Instead of celebrating the achievements of others, the begrudger pulls them down. The begrudger hates anyone getting ‘above their station’, their station being defined as the narrow rut the begrudger him/herself occupies. So celebrities, actors, singers are all easy prey to the begrudger, but they also prey on a local scale, the boy-next-door success story, the locals who band together for their community. It is, in short, a form of jealousy. There are those who see begrudgery as merely a blunt statement of the truth, but that is debatable.

"So that's Europe over there! What's Europe anyway? A continent shaped by the incredible forces of geology and tectonics, ah come on, it's only a bit of land" sez the begrudger

In the case of my inner begrudger, it blows things out of proportion and messes with my perceptions. And it jumped into overdrive when I was listed on the Top 10 Expat and Travel Posts on Spiritual Escapes by The Displaced Nation last week. My initial delight was nearly drowned in a wave of ‘So what’s.

Sure you only threw a few words on a webpage

Not a mention of the care and thought that went into choosing what words and what order, or of the work that went into the website either.

So a few people read it, so what?

Read it and appreciated it and took something away from it. That’s why I blog, that’s why I write. That is THE POINT.

Sure there’s millions out there doing exactly the same

But only 10 made that list. That is an achievement. I should celebrate it!

It’ll give you a big head, and you’ll be mouthing off to everyone about it next

It won’t give me a big head unless I let it. And as for mouthing off – that is exactly what I should do!

There, I said it. I should stand proud of what I did and acknowledge it and shout it from the hills. Serendipitiously a tweet by my friend Frieda Klotz confirms this is what I should be doing. She sent a link to a post by Clay Sharky from two years ago where he sees this lack of speaking up as a feminine trait and one that should be cast aside.

So here’s to speaking up about what you have done and not being afraid to grab any opportunity, even if you have to beat down your inner begrudger to do so.

Once upon a time I had a compass. It looked like this.

It was a tool, a geologists compass. Not only did it help to locate me, it also allowed me to make maps, to reveal features that the eye couldn’t see in the landscape. It helped illuminate the enormous forces that shaped whatever piece of land I was on (or in). I was amazed by it, but also a little overwhelmed.

And in a very uncharacteristic way I dropped out of that life and into another.

Now in some ways I am more sure than ever of what my compass points. It has three arms that point to my family, noting their whereabouts, plotting their  course and anticipating their needs.

But that points to others and not to me.

That is a tricky one. Between worlds and cultures, isolated by location, I’m not quite sure what I revolve around. As a result my course is erratic, a series of projects started but not finished, an ambition that has yet to find it’s focus, a procrastinator in a sea of excuses.

What would the 80-year-old me say? I hope she’d be consoling, tell me to be patient, to keep trying, to finish. I think that would be goddess-like, take the time to find your strengths then let them loose. Don’t rush in, time will tell.

This is a year of experiment so expect to see some unexpected avenues explored and some dead-ends too.  Don’t be afraid to comment, any input is gratefully received.

It increased the rivalry with the neighbours too, their piano was also in the front room, against the common wall of our semi-detached house. Their older children could beat us hands down at proper playing but we could match the younger ones for volume!

That piano is still in my parent’s front room and it entranced the Brown-eyed Girl when we were there over the summer. With a bit of help she picked out ‘Doe a Deer’ and ‘Will you Wash my Father’s shirt’ and was even more delighted when there was a piano in the house in Kerry too. Little Boy Blue was a little more reserved in his interest.

So you can imagine the excitement on Christmas morning when a digital piano arrived…

But the truth is the kids were not nearly as excited as I was. For the last decade my piano-playing has been limited to the few minutes I could grab while on visits home. It was usually brief and depressing. But here’s my chance to practice, to get back into it again.

I’m falling into old habits though, too tied to the dots on the page and not experimenting enough. I got to Grade 4 in my piano exams and in the end could play nothing other then exam pieces.

Now’s my chance to right that, to learn and play for pure enjoyment.

Fur Elise and The Entertainer are once again battering the ears of those around me. Let’s see whether letting myself loose at the piano keyboard helps release my flow on the computer keyboard too.

Has creativity in one area ever led to increased productivity in other areas for you?