We often feel urge to get things done and do not feel happy when something didn’t get completed. What we often forget is that being fulfilled and having a lot of things done fast may not be the same thing. A lot of people work long hours without even enjoying what they do. Most people seemed busy. Being busy doesn’t necessarily mean productive and fulfilled. Sometimes the opposite is true - the more things we need to get done the more stress we feel.
When we present we have more things done in less time and at the same time feel energetic and alive. Most energy derived from being in a present moment. What can give us ability to stay in a present and be fully engaged? It is the ability to manage our energy effectively on multiple levels.
Small Things Ads Up
Bad habits still running our lives and we usually tend to have a lot of them. Each one taking our energy on an unconscious level and a lot of those old patterns adds up quickly and by the time we even get up from bad in the morning, we already on our way to waste a lot of energy which is trapped in our body as an emotion. Its can be changed by taking control of our energy.
We need to take an inventory and figure out what taking energy from us and what gives us energy. Do you know what gives you satisfaction and good emotions? Let’s assume that working on your business activities is giving you energy. Do you know which activities in your business will give you the most leverage?
From reading what successful people do and by studying business fundamentals I know that is probably 2 types of activities:
This is the second post in 3 post series on how to discover and become aware of personal talents through self-assessments.
In my first First post I covered Kolbe Assessment. Please read my last post to find out more about Kolbe.
Today I will cover Strength Finder 2.0 assessment.
Let’s get right into it and find out what is about and is it worth to bother to take the test.
Test is provided by Gallup Research Organization. Gallup has studied human nature and behavior for more than 70 years.
Gallup’s reputation for delivering relevant, timely, and visionary research on what people around the world think and feel is the cornerstone of the organization.
How did I find out about them?
I did some research on Amazon some time ago and discovered a book by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton “Now, Discover Your Strengths“.
Marcus Buckingham worked for Gallup organization as a Sr. Researcher. He is not longer with them. He opens his own company The Marcus Buckingham Company. You can get more information about him here.
Marcus Buckingham spent years interviewing thousands of employees at every career stage. He is widely considered one of the world’s leading authorities on employee productivity and the practices of leading and managing.
According to Marcus:
Companies that focus on cultivating employees’ strengths rather than simply improving their weaknesses stand to dramatically increase efficiency while allowing for maximum personal growth and success.
Marcus Buckingham has been the subject of in-depth profiles in The New York Times, Fortune, Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal.
Donald O. Clifton, Ph.D., was cited by the American Psychological Association as the Father of Strengths Psychology and the Grandfather of Positive Psychology. He was a chairman of Gallup, Inc., and he invented the Clifton Strengths Finder assessment.
It is not a big secret that most people are not aware of their personal talents and therefore do not live to their full potential. I was totally miserable trying to figure out why I didn’t like my job or why can’t I follow through on certain subjects. I wanted to figure out why I do things the way I do it. I wanted to find out about my talents, then refine them and turn them into strengths. It is an ongoing process of refining personal talents and it should never end.
Although there are multiple ways to uncover personal talents, taking perosnal tests is the easiest way to do that. It takes most guesses out to the picture. People spent decades figuring out the question of talent. Now we can take advantage of all of their research. It is incredible.
If you into self-development and personal growth field, you most likely already tried to identify ways to discover what you most good at. I am the same. I tried to figure stuff out about myself for years. I discovered a lot of things about me and my personality. Taking various assessments helped me to become much clearer on what my talents are which brought me to totally new level of understanding myself.
Here are the 3 assessments I found most effective that work great to uncover your personal talents:
1. Kolbe Index A Assessment
2. Strength Finder 2.0
3. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Today I want to talk about one of the assessments I took and you can take too to get clear on your innate talents. It is Kolbe Assessment. Lets take a look on what is about and is it worth it or not to take the test.
“It’s not our fault our generation has short attention spans, Dad. We watch an appalling amount of TV.”
Yeardley Smith
Information Overload: excess amount of information being provided, making processing and absorbing tasks very difficult for the individual because sometimes we cannot see the validity behind the information
Wikipedia
We live in interesting and exciting time. Growth rate of information is staggering and growing each and every day. We have more information available to us than in any time in history.
We can learn anything we want and get any information available to us with a push of a button. It is very convenient. It seems that we should be happy and appreciative that now we don’t have to spend our precious time going to the library and doing research that might take days, weeks or even months. Paradoxically it causes more frustration and disappointment and makes us feel more unhappy and unfulfilled.
Attention span is dropping with each and every day. The more information becomes available the more we need to be selective on which information to process and which to ignore. It causes our attention span go down dramatically.
“The addictive nature of web browsing can leave you with an attention span of nine seconds - the same as a goldfish,” said the BBC in 2002. “Our attention span gets affected by the way we do things,”
Here are several major causes of information overload:
- More information than we can process
- Value of information decreases
photo credit: code poet
It is not a secret that we as humans we want to achieve incredible and meaningful things in life. In other words, we want to be successful and accomplish as much as we want for our own benefit and for benefits of others.
Countless books written on a subject of success and achievement. There is no lack of information available to us. It is actually quite opposite. There is so much information available to us that often we feel lost and don’t know what to do with all the information that flowing our way.
If abundance of information available, why don’t we use effectively to our advantage? What we need to do to make sure that we take advantage of all the information that available to us?
I love to learn new things and I am really grateful and fascinated with all the resources we have available to us. I don’t have to go to the library to get the information I want. I just sit on my chair, open my internet browser, type several keywords in Google and here we go, I have information I requested. It is incredible and we often take it for granted.
Having necessary information fast is a big deal. But to take this information, apply and internalize to our advantage it is completely different thing.
I tend to go through tons of information on a daily basis. Yes, I definitely notice that I became much more knowledgeable in many areas I have interest in. At the same time I notice that by becoming knowledgeable I did not necessarily improve quality of my life which I was intended to do in a first place. Yes, I enjoyed the process of learning, but something were missing. It seems obvious that in order to improve myself, have balance and desired quality of living, I would have to apply the information I’ve learned.
It is seems intuitive, but for me It took some time to figure out how to apply the information I’ve learn by internalizing it for lasting results.
I am convinced by now that the best and easiest way to create a lasting change is to become aware of those two secrets.
Secret 1
Apply idea as soon or as close as possible to the time you discover it.
Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric put it really well by saying:
“The desire, and the ability, of an organization to continuously learn from any source, anywhere and to rapidly convert this learning into action - is the ultimate competitive advantage”.
This can be definitely applied on a personal level as well.
