Do you even lift bro?
Know your strengths to avoid embarrassments
So what?
Imagine yourself at your gym during the busiest time of the day. You walk up to the rack of dumbbells. You position your feet and do a little wiggle. While intently looking at yourself in the mirror, you reach down and grab a pair of dumbbells. You twerk and breathe out. With your mighty strengths, you attempt to straighten out your back to lift the dumbbells. And they don’t budge. Not even an inch.
Knowing your strengths is critical to not making a fool out of yourself at the gym. It applies to your life as well. You can expect the following when you are aware of your strengths:
- Be able to stand out;
- Improvements to your people skills;
- Appreciation for skillsets and attributes that you didn’t know you had;
- Boost in your confidence and self-esteem; and
- Standing out in the crowd and differentiate yourself.
Ask others
We consider this to be the easiest and fastest way to found out about yourself. Asking the people you trust, respect and/or like what they think your strengths is a great way to find your strengths and personality. Start making a list of family members, close friends, teachers, lecturers, colleagues, managers and etc to get you started.
Take a test or two
There are tons of tests out there that can help you find your strengths as well as your personality traits and weaknesses. The ones that we’ve come across are:
- Myer-Briggs Type Indicator
- Enneagram
- DiSC
- SWOT Analysis
- Clifton Strengthsfinder
- Free VIA Assessment
Note down what you do
Take a moment to jot down what you do on a daily basis to find and understand your strengths. Noting down as opposed to trying to remember it will save your mental energy by avoiding trying to remember and refer back to what you did earlier in the day or week. Refer back to what you’ve jotted down and see where you’ve succeeded and failed. Over the next few days, you will notice a trend on what you are good and not so good at.
Try new things
Have you ever watched the Olympics and thought to yourself, I wish I was good at something, or asked yourself, I wonder what else I’m good at. Have you tried curling? Fencing or archery? You won’t know whether you are good at something until you try it.
Open your mind
Having an open mind to what you find out from doing the above things is necessary in finding your strengths. The answers and results might surprise you. By opening your mind to unexpected findings of your strengths search will make sure that you don’t turn a blind eye to skills or traits that will change your life.
My experience
In my recent search for my strengths, I asked my 7 year old daughter what she thinks Daddy is good at. Her response was that I’m good at controlling my frustration and anger when she and her 5 year old brother do something that they shouldn’t be doing. It was something that I had been working on and thought I lacked but was a validation and motivation that what I’ve been doing to improve on that front is working.
What now?
- Pick two of the above things and stick to it for the next 10 days.
- Think of ways that you can leverage your strengths for your benefit and/or enjoyment.