Recently I made a list of my strengths. It was time to assess what I’m really good at because I was applying for a day job, well several day jobs. It was a very helpful strategy to make an unfiltered list of what you believe you have strengths in. If you’re lacking confidence or want a confirmation of your hunch you can ask a good friend.
Not sure what you could write? Here’s the list of my 17 strengths:
- Talking
- Writing
- Selling
- Having phone calls
- Good vocal presence
- High persuasiveness
- Having and showing understanding
- Giving a good feeling
- Being empathetic
- Listening to people
- Tidying up things, putting things in order, organizing and cleaning up chaos and mess
- Being diplomatic
- Extolling others
- Pairing off people
- Bringing to the market
- Curious inner child thinking
- Highly competitive thinking
There are probably more, but that’s not the point. This is a long list. You could feel flattered by all the things you are strong at. However, there are different levels of strength. For example, I’m not as good in being bringing to the market as I’m in giving people a good feeling. I’m a better writer than a talker. And so on.
Detecting your no. 1 strength
Consider the list you made for yourself very carefully and now give plus signs (+) whereas three plus signs stand for an extraordinary strength. Choose your three strengths to rate with three stars. When done, select only one strength. This will be the strength you’re going to focus on for the next 6 months, 12 months or 24 months.
In my case I chose those three:
- Writing
- Good vocal presence
- Giving a good feeling
I selected writing because I have strong intentions to become a professional and well-known writer. Moreover, I have plans to pursue a voice over path thanks to my vocal strengths. That’s why I selected „Good vocal presence“. Finally, I like giving people a good feeling. It’s temporary but with the energy that I’m having (especially in one-on-one conversations) is something I want to use to set even more people on fire.
Nevertheless, out of these three, I chose „Writing“ as my no. 1 thing to focus on.
In fact, I’m focusing on it already since July 2016 according to my Achievement Contract of becoming a “well-paid author of texts who chooses his client projects and executes them using valued-based pricing“. Until March 2018 I will work towards that goal.
The takeaway from today: Don’t let strengths misguide you into a direction of distraction. Yes, you can be good at many things, but it doesn’t matter because you won’t have the capacity and energy to pursue everything at once. If you try, you will get lost.
Focus pursuing on one strength for a solid amount of time (6-24 months) in its own season. Shine in that season and then go after your next strength in (again) its respective season. The name of your season will be what you focus on. For example, I’m in my „writing season“. What season are you in? How long will this season last?
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This was episode 62 of the #weekdaykickoff 🌊 Every weekday (Mon-Fri). Also find me on Anchor so we can talk — literally talk from person to person!
Also published on Medium.