Discover Your Strengths — Synergy Step 2
Welcome to the fourth installment in our six part series on living with synergy. In this installment, we will discover the internal strengths you will use to express your life’s message.
If synergy is a new self-improvement concept to you, I recommend reading my introductory article on synergy, the follow up article on the synergy process, and my article on message discovery before proceeding.
Discover Your Strengths
The best way to communicate your message to the world is by leveraging your natural strengths. A gifted speaker could communicate his message using the spoken word; a gifted writer, the written word; a master artist, his art. In other words, once you have discovered your message, you should figure out which of your many talents will help spread it.
Skills Assessment
Take out a sheet of paper and list everything you are good at. The list doesn’t have to be pretty – it’s just a thought starter. The important thing to keep in mind as you perform your skills inventory is that every skill counts, whether it’s marketable or not. To get you started, I have included a list of categories to consider, along with examples of each:
- Cognitive Strengths: thinking, analyzing, problem solving, calculating, designing, planning, strategizing, comprehending, learning
- Communication Strengths: public speaking, private counseling, writing, persuading, listening, explaining
- Physical Strengths: speed, agility, strength, endurance
- Emotional Strengths: caring, nurturing, empathizing, supporting, loving, honoring, respecting, connecting, relating
Once you have listed your strengths, take a moment to consider which of them could help you communicate your message. Be very open minded and optimistic regarding the communicative powers of each skill, since the reality will become more clear on its own once we get to the job selection step, in the next article.
The Benefits and Limits of Skills
If you’ve been reading this series of articles, you know that my own personal message is an expression of my need to help people learn, grow, and achieve. I am utilizing several of my strengths to accomplish this, including writing (the articles), programming (the Web Site), and my natural empathy for people. It would be foolish and frustrating for me to attempt to accomplish my life mission using skills I do not have. In other words, before I can build something important, I must understand my tools.
Have you ever taken one of those tests designed to help you figure out what you want to be when you grow up? Those tests focus on skills and aptitudes, since there is an obvious connection between these and job success. These tests are based upon an assumption that you will enjoy your daily tasks if you are good at them.
But this all-too-common approach to job selection is backwards. Just because you are an excellent writer does not mean you will enjoy writing TPS Reports. Just because you’re a master communicator does not mean you will feel fulfilled by boring code-of-conduct seminars. And just because you are a superb visual artist does not mean you will enjoy designing company logos. For those of us who long for meaning in our daily activities, it’s not enough to be good at our jobs. We want our jobs to matter.
I spent 6 years of my life designing and building Web applications. I was good at my job. Performance evaluations exceeded expectations. In the six years I was there, my salary almost doubled, one of the fastest increases in the history of my office. My bosses loved me, and my co-workers respected me. I was able to perform well because there was a strong connection between my daily activities and my natural abilities. I was good at analysis, design, problem solving, syntax, and communication – skills I used every day.
But guess what? I hated the job. That’s right, I hated it. Going into the office felt like walking toward my death. It’s a strange sensation to hate something that treats you so well. I felt ashamed. Surely there must have been something wrong with me. My bank balance kept going up, but my happiness kept going down. I had no idea why. It was all very perplexing.
I finally realized that although it was a good job – a great job, in fact – it was the wrong job for me. I hated my job because there was no connection at all between my job responsibilities and my motivations. I am good at writing, but I derived no sense of purpose from writing whitepapers and best practices on the software development lifecycle. I am good at problem solving, analyzing, designing, and speaking, but I did not enjoy using these skills to build software applications. The only part of my job that I really enjoyed was mentoring and educating, which I didn’t get to do nearly enough.
When Using Your Skills Isn’t Enough
Once I came to the realization that this life is my one and only chance to make a difference, my attitude changed. Instead of wondering why I hated such a good job, I started wondering how I could have wasted so much time building a career I did not believe in. This is it, folks. You either do something important now, or you don’t do something important at all. Put up, or shut up. I chose the former.
I took some time to discover my message. I inventoried my skills, exactly as described above. I already knew what I was good at, but I wanted to take stock of which skills I enjoyed and which could be discarded. What I discovered was life changing, astounding. I discovered that I could advance my life’s mission using the very same skills that made me so successful as a software developer.
That’s really the wonderful thing about our natural propensities. Many of them can be used across jobs, fields, and industries. I now take great joy in using my strengths. I enjoy writing again. I enjoy coding too. In fact, I enjoy every last bit of it because I know I’m doing what I was meant to do.
Do you feel you are using your strengths to accomplish something important? If so, great! If not, carry on to the next article, where we will try to find you a better job.
You Are Reading an Article Series — Synergy, The Key to Greater Energy and Happiness:
- Intro: Synergy, the Key to Greater Energy and Happiness
- 4 Steps to a Fulfilling Life Mission
- Discover Your Message — Synergy Step One
- Discover Your Strengths — Synergy Step Two
- Choose Your Medium — Synergy Step Three
- Choose Your Environment — Synergy Step Four
May 8, 2007 Tuesday at 7:47 am
JohnPlace 25 Responses to “Discover Your Strengths — Synergy Step 2”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
[...] Discover Your Strengths — Synergy Step Two [...]
[...] on your ability to do your life’s work. Even if you’ve taken time to identify your message, inventory your strengths, and pick the perfect job, a bad boss or a stifling work atmosphere could spell [...]
[...] Discover Your Strengths — Synergy Step Two [...]
[...] Discover Your Strengths — Synergy Step Two [...]
[...] Discover Your Strengths — Synergy Step Two [...]
[...] that your anxiety attacks are lesser and lesser with every day that passes plus you would feel more optimistic about your life. This is just one example of what a simple exercise can do for you. There are more [...]
[...] next thing that you need to do is to make a list of the strengths that you have. These can range from your internal gifts, your aptitudes, your character traits [...]
Knowing your strengths and using them to your advantage will get you farther in a shorter period of time. Write your goals around the strengths you already possess.
The key is to continually grow and work on your weaknesses but do not focus on them. Don’t ever stop improving and making yourself better.
Sick of getting low numbers of useless visitors to your website? Well i want to let you know about a fresh underground tactic that makes myself $900 every day on 100% AUTOPILOT. I could truthfully be here all day and going into detail but why dont you merely check their site out? There is really a excellent video that explains everything. So if your seriously interested in making quick hard cash this is the website for you. Auto Traffic Avalanche
There are many of tactics how to make your hair grow faster. I’d really like to share with you these tips. For anyone who is really interested in how to make your hair grow faster, just search in internet and you will then find plenty of good ideas.
I think other website proprietors should take this web site as an model, very clean and wonderful user genial style and design, as well as the content. You are an expert in this topic!
I’m extremely impressed with your writing skills and also with the layout on your blog. Is this a paid theme or did you modify it yourself? Anyway keep up the nice quality writing, it’s rare to see a great blog like this one these days..
I’m trying to find a way to get my ex back…anything! Its hard when a relationship ends over a misunderstanding.
I was very happy to search out this web-site.I wished to thanks to your time for this excellent read!! I definitely having fun with each little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to take a look at new stuff you weblog post.
Excellent blog right here! Also your website rather a lot up fast! What web host are you the usage of? Can I get your associate link in your host? I desire my site loaded up as fast as yours lol
http://blackfriday2011-ads.blogspot.com/
Hi, just wanted to mention, I enjoyed this article. It was inspiring. Keep on posting!||
I just could not go away your website prior to suggesting that I really loved the standard info a person provide on your visitors? Is gonna be again continuously to check out new posts.
Hey there exceptional blog! Does running a blog similar to this take a great deal of work? I have very little expertise in programming but I was hoping to start my own blog in the near future. Anyway, should you have any recommendations or techniques for new blog owners please share. I understand this is off topic however I just wanted to ask. Thanks a lot!
Hey there! I know this is kinda off topic but I was wondering if you knew where I could locate a captcha plugin for my comment form? I’m using the same blog platform as yours and I’m having trouble finding one? Thanks a lot!
You can certainly descry your judgement in the chore you write. The period hopes for even more passionate writers like you who are not frightened to noise abroad how they believe. In any case continue after your heart.
Recommeneded websites…
[...]Here are some of the sites we recommend for our visitors[...]……
Part of the most awesome posts I have ever discovered on this forum. I found this very much useful for my future work. Thanks very much.
That is the correct blog for anybody who needs to search out out about this topic. You notice a lot its virtually hard to argue with you (not that I truly would need…HaHa). You positively put a brand new spin on a subject thats been written about for years. Nice stuff, simply great!
I’m going to guess by July 1, Castro is in at SS and Theriot is moved to 2B, Miles as a backup; my guess ins this scenario: Hendry will want t to hold $ close (well, close in comparison to NYY, NYM, Boston, Angels CWS) to have the financial wherewithal to try to go for the needed July 31 acquisition (RF Ethier from Dodgers? A bullpen arm or two and maybe the prize catch from next year’s off-season, Zach Greinke) that will clinch the playoff spot.
I appreciate a tremendous put up, may examine your personal others topics. i appreciate your thoughts within this, I felt a bit made an impact to by this article. Thanks again! You make a great time. Has fantastic report here. I do think that if more people consideration for it that way, they’d have got a better time period get the suspend ofing the situation.