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In my last post I cover several most important Leverage Points and how to take advantage of them. If you don’t read my previous article, please click on Information Age or How To Avoid The Biggest Mistake Most People Make and read it.
One of the leverage points is importance to know your strengths, or to me more precise, your talents so you can gain advantage of them.
What the key to have fulfilled, happy and worry free living? It is knowing what your are good at (your natural talents) and being able to take advantage of this by matching those knowledge with choosing your business, life partner, friends, team members…. Choices are limitless.
But the first step is to know what you really good at.
Do you know your talents?
You would be surprised on how many people wouldn’t be able to answer this question.
According to Gallup study, after surveying 10 millions of people they find out that 7 million oft them don’t have an opportunity to focus on what they do best. They stating that people who are not playing to their strengths 6 times less likely to be engaged on their job. Those people are completely different people when they not playing to their strength.
This is pretty scary. You are probably heard that in US more people dying on Monday mornings around 8- 9 Am then in any other time. Job unsatisfaction is really a big issue. Why do you thinks this happening? It is simply because most people are in the wrong place and doing things they shouldn’t be doing in a first place.
I finally get it several years ago. I spend more then 15 years studying and working in field that I naturally not good at. I was totally miserable. With time I started to question my believes and finally realize that things I was doing will never get me to the place I want to be simply because I am not cut out for that role. In short I spend all this time in Computer Science and Information technology field. I knew that logic and math definitely never been among my strongest skills. I more enjoy working with people, finding looking ways to learn more about people, psychology, philosophy and all humanitarian subjects in general.
No wonder I was miserable most of the time, because I watch people who were good at it, and freaked out not understanding how can’t I be as good as they are, even when I push very hard.
What I was doing is I simply tried to concentrate and improve on things that I wasn’t naturally good at. I was improving my weaknesses. Someone said before that, if you work hard to improve your weaknesses, you might well end up with very strong weaknesses. It is very true and the only way to excel and have near perfect performance in your chosen area is to concentrate on your strengths.
I hope I have done by dirty job here and that by now you understand why it is more beneficial to know and focus on your strengths, not on weaknesses.
What the differences between a talent and a strength?
Talent is something that you are naturally born with. It is curtain personality traits that you repeatedly expose over and over on a regular basis. You might not be aware of your talent, but it is there and you are naturally better at something that most people on this planet. You are unique and talented as no one else.
I learn it by visiting one of the T. Harv Eker seminars. I don’t think it belong to Harv, but he stated: “How You Do Anything Is How You Do Everything”.
That’s might explain why we do one thing well, while having trouble to be good at something else.
Strengths on another hand it is something that you can acquire by building on your talents. If you take your unique talents and develop it, it becomes your strength. You surely have multiple talents, but because you are not developing them ,you might not even be aware what those talents are. By discovering it and concentrating on developing it, you can become the best at what you do and tings going to come to you easily and naturally.
Think about something that you are getting a lot of compliments about. You might take it for granted, but for others it is not that easy to do things which you consider to be not a big deal.
When I was a child I get a lot of compliments about my communication skills with people. People pointed out to me I can talk to anyone and feel comfortable with that. I took it for granted and assumed that all people are like that, but as I found out later, it is not the case. Because I thought that it is not a big deal, I really never took time to develop it into my strengths. You know that if something not growing, it is dying. Nothing stay still. With time I lost this natural ability to connect with people easily. I am aware of that now, so I can work and develop it and be sure that I can be a very good at connecting with people when I develop this talent of mine. It is better to discover your talent later then never.
So here is several action steps to start you on a way of discovering your natural talents and abilities:
- Take 5 minutes aside, take clean peace of paper and write down fast, without thinking, what you think you are good at? This is brainstorming session, so there is no right or wrong answer. write fast something that comes to mind. First responses are usually a best ones, because they coming from inside of you and your conscious mind don’t have time to analyze and discard ideas.
- Mentally go back to your childhood and recall things that you got compliment at a lot? Write it down on a paper as well. even if it far away from what you are currently doing, it is ok, we are here on a way to become aware of your talents.
- Look at your library: books, physical articles, computer articles, CD, DVD, tapes and find the common theme. Write it down.
I have pile of books on Psychology, Human Behavior, Law Of Attraction, Communication, Behavior Science, Influence, Personality Books… By looking at my collection I can easily see in what direction I want to go. It is seems obvious, I know, but it took me long time to connect my hobbies and my direction in which I want to go as long as I live.
- Take a look at your Favorites on your computer or your Folder Structure and define a common pattern in them, write it down.
I personally write all folder names and favorites folder names (I have complex structure of my favorites with multiple folders). Then I simply mind map them. If you are not familiar with concept of mind mapping, please go here http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newISS_01.htm and check it out. It is easy way to organize information into more manageable pieces. A lot of free tools available on the Internet for you to take advantage of this concept.
- What would yo do regularly even if you are not being paid to do that? Write it Down.
- What is that you doing that you loose track of time. Write it Down. It is a goldmine here. This activity most likely is your talent.
- Now take all of our steps and insights and put them together on a piece of paper. What you are looking for here is for patterns.
There is much more in depths approaches to find out your unique talents and build on it, but you are the only person who really can answer this question in a best way. This is a good way to start thinking about it. I will be covering more in depth approaches later in my blog, so stayed tune and see you later.
Please leave me comments and let me know what you think and what you think is your biggest concern regarding discovering your talents and applying them. I will read and reply on all of them.
I am really want to know on what you think.
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