Freedom in Figuring it Out
I think one of my favorite parts of being a fellow is the retreats we get to go on, and in the month of January, we were blessed to have TWO retreats instead of just one. Mary already wrote about the Life Map retreat we took to the beach in the beginning of the month (if you haven’t read her blog yet, stop right now and go read it), but the last weekend of January we had a two-day vocation retreat, and I am pumped to tell you about it.
Prior to attending this retreat, we were all required to take two tests: The Highlands Ability Battery (HAB) and the MCODE. These tests were aimed at discovering our gifts and motivations respectively, and they produced nearly 20 pages of results. Thank goodness we weren’t responsible for interpreting these results on our own. We had a facilitator named Cameron who was an expert in all things HAB and MCODE, and we spent two days together unpacking our results with him.
We started our time together by discussing the Biblical foundations for everything we were about to talk about. I really appreciated starting here as it was a good reminder that all of our skills are from the Lord, and He invites us to use them for His glory. We also talked about calling which has been quite the hot topic this year. Discussions on what my calling is often lead to me putting a lot of pressure on myself, but I found a lot of freedom from this when we looked at Romans 12:2 “…then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is…” Discerning God’s will requires testing! We don’t have to have it all figured out before we start to work. While I have been told that about a million times, it finally sank in this time.
We spent the majority of the two days analyzing the results of our tests and discussing our vocational calling in terms of where our gifts, desires, and opportunities overlap. Our results from the HAB were broken up into 3 categories – personal style, driving abilities, and specialized abilities. Personal style was about our personalities, driving abilities focused on what drives us, and specialized abilities were focused on how we learn best. Out of the three categories I found the results of driving abilities to be most compelling. Cameron explained that these abilities are ones that we must pay attention to, and if we are unable to use them within our work, he advised us to find a way to use them outside of work to avoid feelings of frustration or lack of fulfillment at work. I found learning about these abilities to be super helpful.
Thumbs up for the Vocation Retreat…
Day two was focused on our motivations, desires, and opportunities. Unpacking my results from the MCODE was super self-enlightening. While I know that these results do not define me, it was really great to be able to put my motivations into words and see them so plainly at work in my day to day life.
Going into this weekend, I had some pretty big hopes that I would have my life and career planned out upon leaving the retreat. While this was not the case, I did leave with a deeper understanding of myself and who God created me to be, and I have a better idea of what I think He is calling me towards. And for that I am extremely grateful!
Until next time,
Allison :)