An attractive, poised mid-life woman came into my office the other day, wanting help with finding a new career that she would enjoy. “I’ve worked in sales for 30 years. I’m good at it but I don’t enjoy it anymore. Everyone says I should start with a list of my strengths, but I don’t have a clue what those are!”
She’s not alone. For one thing, objective self appraisal is elusive for many of us. For another, some gnarly questions are involved: for instance, what’s the definition of a strength? And is there a difference between a strength and a talent? And then the most pragmatic question: how do I discover mine?
Let’s think of a strength as a quality that comes relatively naturally, without much tension or effort, and can be called on with consistent good results. Examples might be analytic acumen, or empathy, or esthetic creativity. To be considered a strength, it should also be something you enjoy or get satisfaction from. You may have abilities that don’t bring you particular satisfaction – they either never did, or no longer do – but they shouldn’t be considered strengths.
A talent, on the other hand, is innate. It’s always present as the raw material of a strength – perhaps this is what gives a strength its effortless quality – but the talent has to be honed with knowledge, experience and skillfulness to be considered a strength. For instance, you may have a talent for getting along with people; add to that talent some experience in establishing consensus along with skill in communicating, and you have a strength in motivating people.Most of us have many talents that never get fully developed into strengths but continue to add pleasure and satisfaction to our lives.
So how do you determine your strengths? Remember that at the core of a strength is a talent, so start with your talents. Because they’re natural to us and easily taken for granted, they’re often difficult to identify. To get started, you might look for situations where something new arose that you instinctively knew how to handle. What was the personal quality that you drew on? Or look for situations where you were totally engrossed in learning, skipping steps because you already intuitively knew the outcome or solution. What were the mental or interpersonal talents demonstrated here? Or, look for situations where you supplied a creative twist that enhanced an outcome. What imaginative or idiosyncratic insight did you bring to bear?
Once you’ve identified several talents, take the next step. Think about experience, knowledge or skills you’ve gathered that give you consistent access to that talent. Here’s an example:
Shirley noticed that she was often several steps ahead of her boss in understanding why a cash flow problem kept recurring. After identifying a similar aptitude in other situations, she recognized she had a natural ability to think abstractly about numbers. Her experience of years in accounting gave her both foresight and confidence in her ability to make projections and troubleshoot budgetary short-falls.
In conclusion, if you want to identify your strengths in order to build on them in your career, here are two simple suggestions:
- Identify your key talents – things you instinctively understand or do better or more naturally than others – and follow them to locate your strengths, those qualities that allow you to draw on your talents with consistently good results.
- And don’t try to do it alone! Finding a buddy for your “strengths search” can help you recognize talents and identify ones that you’ve developed into strengths. Dialogue with another person can also assist you to understand how those strengths become assets to a prospective employer.
If you’re interested in reading more, Now, Discover Your Strengths by Buckingham and Clifton is a good resource. Good luck!
