Lead with Strength
It's great to be passionate. It's great to be smart. It's great to be creative and hard-working and productive. All these things lead to possibilities. Wonderful possibilities!
So many possibilities. Oh god. So many.
At some point your life, you will have to decide what to do next. You have your degree(s), you have your experience, you have your passion, but those things don't always point to a clear next step.
Your passion can give you an idea of the area you want to work in — human rights, marine biology, big data, animal welfare — but passion doesn't always narrow down the what.
That’s where strengths come in. Your strengths can be a wayfinder, pointing you towards action. A strength in persuasion suggests a very different animal-welfare-related career than a strength in strategy.
There are a couple of advantages to following your strengths. First, people who use their strengths at work (and at home) are happier and more engaged. Second, you'll make more of an impact using your strengths than you ever will mucking around with things you're not very good at.
I believe that your job in life is to be the best you that you can be. The first step of that process is to figure out who you are (so you can work on being better at it), and part of who you are is your strengths.
So how do you figure out what your strengths are?
Think real hard. This is a good start — you probably have a pretty good idea what you're good at, what comes easy. But you are probably overlooking some important strengths, so this won't give you the whole picture.
Take a quiz. I love quizzes that tell me about myself! I blame teen magazines. The grown-up versions are the VIA Character Strengths assessment and the Gallup CliftonStrengths assessment. They’re both backed by research and well-respected in the personal development and coaching fields.
Ask a friend. Ask lots of friends (and relatives, and co-workers) to tell you what they think your three biggest strengths are. The more people you can ask, the better.
Look for patterns in their responses and you'll soon see common threads.This is admittedly weird and difficult, but it really works. I have done this exercise twice and I am still friends with all the people I asked (even the people I asked twice!), so don't worry about that.
Consider the idea of a “superpower”, a strength which comes to you so naturally, so effortlessly, that you don't even perceive it as a strength, any more than you perceive breathing as a strength. I think this is where reflection falls short, and assessments and feedback from others shine.
How about you?
Do you know what your strengths are? Do you use that knowledge to think about work, volunteering, family, or even in your friendships? (Does it make sense for you to beat yourself up about forgetting birthdays when your strength is introducing people to new ideas and communities?)
I work with strengths a lot in coaching — in fact, one of the first things I do is ask clients to take one of those assessments. If you want to explore your strengths with the guidance of a certified coach, get in touch.
The image is Vissen blomst (1937) by Norwegian artist Olav Strømme.