Article Categories

»	Arts & Entertainment
»	Automotive
»	Business
»	Careers & Jobs
»	Education & Reference
»	Finance
»	Food & Drink
»	Health & Fitness
»	Home & Family
»	Internet & Online Businesses
»	Miscellaneous
»	Self Improvement
»	Shopping
»	Society & News
»	Sports & Recreation
»	Technology
»	Travel & Leisure
»	Writing & Speaking

Reprint Article Code

Category: Articles » Careers & Jobs » Article » Article Code

How to Discover Your Strengths

What do you enjoy doing? What makes you feel energetic? What do you do well? These are no ordinary questions. Answers to the above questions can lead you to the most precious asset you have for building a successful career: Your strengths. Why bother about strengths? When you use our strengths, you will enjoy your work and give your best performance. Opposite is also true. Failing to use your own strengths is a recipe for boredom and mediocre performance at work. You may wonder if you have any strength in the first place. Indeed, when people see ... read more

Article Title:

Article Body:

What do you enjoy doing? What makes you feel energetic? What do you do well? These are no ordinary questions.

Answers to the above questions can lead you to the most precious asset you have for building a successful career: Your strengths.

Why bother about strengths? When you use our strengths, you will enjoy your work and give your best performance. Opposite is also true. Failing to use your own strengths is a recipe for boredom and mediocre performance at work.

You may wonder if you have any strength in the first place. Indeed, when people see a great musician, painter, orator or sportsman perform, they recognize readily his/her strength. But they fail to ask themselves what their own strengths are and quietly assume they have none.

There are three main reasons why people fail to leverage on their own strengths. First, what you are good at comes easily to you. Therefore, you may take it for granted. For
 
example, if your strength lies in, say, leading people, you may find this activity so easy that it may not appear as anything special to you.

Second, your strengths may be such that you may not be able to publicly express them, unlike in the case of a painter or musician. Therefore, no one, including you, recognizes them.

Third, since many people do not recognize their strengths, they fail to develop them. As a result, the strengths remain dormant, like an unpolished diamond.

Here's how you can spot your own strengths if you don't already know them:

+Feelings
 
Pay attention to the activities that give you a feeling of joy or enjoyment. That's a clue to your strengths.

+Energy
 
Do you suddenly feel energized while doing certain activities? If yes, that's another clue to your strengths.

+Achievements
 
Look at all your past achievements and see if you can detect a pattern of specific activities. If you can, these particular activities are nothing but expressions of your
 
strengths.

+Excellence
 
Find out what you excel at consistently. That's a definite clue to your strengths.

+Compliments
 
Interestingly, people can identify others' strengths (and weaknesses) quite easily. If you can notice others' strengths, they too can notice yours. So, if someone compliments you for good work, pay attention. He may be pointing at your strengths unconsciously.

+Compulsiveness
 
A person's strengths are like a blown-up balloon under the water--they keep surfacing. Sub-consciously, you may feel a compulsion to express your strengths. For example, if your strength is writing, you may grab any opportunity to write.

Ask yourself: "What do I feel compelled to do?

+Yearnings
 
Like a magnet, your yearnings pull you towards your strengths. So, if you catch yourself longing repeatedly to do something, say, teaching others, therein may lie your strength.

+Rapid learning
 
If you are able to learn a particular skill rapidly, that again is a clue to your strength.

+Losing track of time
 
Not being conscious of the time while you are doing something is one of the most reliable clues to your strengths.

Ask yourself: "What do I enjoy doing so much that it makes me lose track of time?"

+Feedback analysis
 
This method was suggest by management guru Peter Drucker. It works as follows:

1. Whenever you take a key decision or action, write down what you expect to happen.
 
2. Later, perhaps after a few days, weeks or months, compare the actual results with your own expectations.

According to Drucker, if practiced consistently, the feedback analysis will reveal to you both your strengths and weaknesses.

With so many ways to uncover your strengths, it is time you unleashed them to enjoy your work, give superior performance and savor success in your career.

Author Bio:

Some other recently published careers & jobs articles

Layoffs, redundancy, survival guide. by John Harriyott
Being laid off is dramatic and traumatic and not a nice experience. It is easy to get very bitter and angry but if you want to ...

A Great Career Path in Bioengineering by Jullie Harvard
Want to impact humanity and protect its health? Improve quality of life? Being a Bio-medical Engineer is a great opportunity to reach this goal. ...

Get an Online Degree That Will Look Good on Resumes by Jullie Harvard
A lot of people choose online degree for variety of reasons, which including personal fulfillment, career advancement, and love of learning. If you want a degree ...

Get Started Your Career In Nursing by Jullie Harvard
Qualified nurses are in highly demand in the health care market. Throughout the years, the field of nursing has brought millions and millions ...

What Are Your Career Futures with an Art Degree? by Jullie Harvard
Graduates with arts degrees often feel some difficulties to determine their career goal in the initial stage. In general view, most of jobs ...

Oil jobs – how is life in the middle of the ocean? by Rick Martin
Working in the oil and gas industry requires certain skills and abilities. The responsibility is huge no matter the type of job but ...

Publisher Guidelines

You may reprint this article electronically in your newsletter or on your website, free of charge.

If you reprint this article from our site, then you must keep everything intact. This includes the articles title, author name, articles body, authors bio / resource box, the links contained within the article, all copyright notices and the link pointing back to our site. All links within the article must also be made active / hyperlinks.