My Four Best Qualities: What are Yours?

This is going to be an article all about me.  Well, that sounds like something you really want to read, right?  You get to read about Paula Harer.  It is your lucky day!  But, it is part of an exercise designed to help you become aware of your strengths, be able to verbalize them and make changes if you don’t like what that list looks like.  One of the best qualities most women have is reinvention.

I was feeling like I needed a little pat on the back for myself so I started thinking about the things that I am proud of about myself: I started to think of what is good about me.  It turned out to be a very positive internal challenge, more about what I feel I bring to the table for my friends, my family and the people around me than self-praise.  What I didn’t include were the basics like she showers daily, always wears deodorant or knows how to drive a car.  Here is my list:

I am very generous.  I can honestly say that I get much more excited about gifts that I am handing our than gifts that I am receiving.  Being generous is a much more selfish attribute than you might think.  Take, for example, the fact that I knit hats for friends’ children or grandchildren.  I knit the hat, which allows me to spend time with that friend in my mind every time I knit a stitch.  I give the hat to the friends who ooh and ahh over it because it is, of course, super cute.  Then, I collect the compliments.  I am the star of that.  Tah-Dah!  I get so excited when I find the perfect gift.  I am also generous with donations, with my time and with any other resources a that I have.  It makes me feel good, so everybody wins.

I’ve got it.  One of my best qualities is style and I got it from my Mom who was way a more stylish and beautiful and talented than I can ever hope to be, so I come by it honestly.  She could make a hospital gown look good!  And, we didn’t have a lot of money.  I can remember watching her sewing a dress for her high school reunion that I still remember.  It had beads around the neckline and was very risqué to my 6-year-old self because the neckline was nowhere near the neck!  Robin’s egg blue with black beading.  Stunning, and homemade. I inherited that from her.  I like to say that on my headstone it will read, “Here lies Paula.  She could make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”  While Style has nothing to do with money when I was young and poor people seemed to think I was way more successful monetarily and it had to be because I was able to make something from the bargain basement look expensive.  When I started my life over two years ago I moved into a one room loft and everything that I owned had to go into that loft.  The only furniture that I bought was two sleeper sofas so my adult children could all stay with me at one time.  My Mom’s style was never more evident and necessary than when I had to make that place our family home.  I did and it is.

My final of the four best qualities is resilience.  I am, as I feel most women are, a resilient woman.  At 61 years-old I am newly single and reinventing myself, as I have had to do a number of times before.  I am like those blow-up clown punching bags that have sand in the bottom: when I get punched down I hit the ground and bounce back up.  It doesn’t mean I don’t have a little wear and tear on me.  It doesn’t mean that I am not held together with a little duck tape.  But I do pop back up every time.

Now it’s your turn.  What are your four best qualities?  If you don’t know them, ask your friends.  I would love to see them in the comments and no need to feel embarrassed because mine are right here for all the world to see.  Brag about yourself a little. Next time, I will talk about some ideas for how to make changes if you don’t not like your list of best qualities.