For the past three episodes, we’ve been talking about discovering your strengths: Discovering Your Strengths with Sara Holtz, Using StrengthsFinder to Discover Your Strengths with Anne Elkin, and How Personality Assessments Can Help You Be Happier and More Productive at Work with Anne Bogel. 
 
This is such an important topic. There’s lots of research that shows that our greatest opportunity for career success comes when we focus on and leverage our natural strengths – and look for opportunities to use them.  The more time that we can devote each day to activities that draw on our personal strengths, the more engaged we are at work, the more productive we are, the more creative we are, the more satisfied we are, and the better results we achieve.
 
Here’s the catch though. Our strengths are often invisible to us.  Since they come so easily to us, we often discount them as not very important.  We assume if it’s easy for us, it must be easy for everyone.

Given the outsized role that identifying and leveraging our strengths can play in career success, it’s important to figure out what your strengths are.  One way to do that is by paying attention to your daily activities at work - how you approach your work, how you interact with others, and when you are most engaged.  
 
Here’s my challenge for you:  Focus on a typical workweek.  Pay attention. Reflect on these questions as you go about your daily activities.  Write down your observations.

What aspects of your job do you find energizing?
         Leading a team?
         Negotiating with vendors?
         Synthesizing complicated information?
What do you find draining?
         Making hiring decisions?
         Analyzing data?
         Working on a team?
What do you do easily that other people find more difficult?
         Dealing with difficult customers?
         Making cold calls?
         Learning new software programs?
What’s difficult for you that others find easier? 
         Developing budgets?
         Being flexible about change?
         Dealing with the politics in your organization?
How do you spontaneously respond when something your team is working on goes awry?
         Take charge?
         Get advice from others?
         Find the humor in the situation?
The questions can go on and on –
          What are you doing when time flies?
          What parts of your job do you gravitate toward doing again and again?
          What do you volunteer to do?
          What did you love doing when you were a child?
 
Once you’ve amassed this information, take an hour or so in a quiet place and think about what you’ve learned.  What things emerge as what you are really good at – your superpowers if you will? 
 
Then, think about how you could spend more of your day doing those activities.  I bet it will make a big difference in how much you enjoy your work and how successful you are at it.
 
Please share what you’ve learned through this process by emailing me at
holtz@tomyyounger.me.