How to identify your super-powers (03)

We're diving into the second piece of our career foundation today – discovering your Strengths. Your Strengths are the ways of working, thinking and engaging that you are naturally and easily excellent at. 

Today's deep-dive will be valuable for you too even if you're not trying to figure out your career. We can all be better at using and honing our Strengths! 

Understanding your Strengths is important for several reasons - 

• If you double-down on your strengths (i.e., focus on improving them, designing your work around them), they will become your super-powers or the things you do better than most others

• Using your strengths regularly will naturally reenergize you

• When you're really clear on (and proud of) your unique value, you'll be comfortable talking about and owning your Strengths with conviction (but not bragging. Ay, the tight-rope we have to walk…)

Similarly to your Operating Principles, you likely have a hunch at what you're good at, but you might not have sat down to explicitly define your Strengths or gotten specific about how they show up in your work.

AND, this is important – because we women are SO competent and able to do just about anything, you may have taught yourself to excel at ways of working that are not true Strengths.

The benefit in discovering your Strengths, is that you'll also naturally uncover your weaknesses or the types of work that don't come easily to you. This will allow you to create workarounds or gradually shed tasks that drain you. 

Here are a few examples of how understanding their Strengths has been so useful to my clients in their career design -

• A consultant who felt free as she realized that she is master at building relationships and organizing information. She can make both a focus in her work and all the analysis required in consulting drains her as it doesn't come naturally. She is looking for roles in executive facilitation.

• A brand manager who is good at and thrives in both relationships and analysis. She is pursuing roles in Investor Relations in Impact Investing, which will use both strengths and align with her operating principles of Belonging and Impact.

• A former investor relations lead who excels at learning, adaptability, creativity and connection. She is starting a women's wear brand, drawing on her ability to learn quickly, adapt as she builds and deep understanding of her consumer. Understanding her strengths also confirmed that she thrives in an entrepreneurial, rather than corporate, environment.

You can see how more of my clients have used their strengths here. 

Here is a snippet of how I use some of my top strengths as a coach (these are in the language of the Clifton Strengths test which I'll explain in a sec): 

• Maximizer - this is ‘taking things from good to great,’ and is the epitome of what I do everyday – I get so much energy from and thrive in helping my clients figure out how to take their lives from good to really, really amazing

• Significance - while I sometimes cringe at this strength of ‘wanting to be seen as credible and professional,’ it helps me embrace showing up on LinkedIn and in this newsletter regularly

• Relator - this strength makes me good at developing deep, genuine relationships in which I 'want to understand others' feelings, goals, fears, and dreams.' In other words, coaching 😊

Now it is your turn…

I am a big fan of the Clifton StrengthsFinders Test, as it is effective test that can help you uncover strengths you might not have realized you have. 

But, it is absolutely not critical to figuring out your strengths. If you want to do self-guided exploration, answer these questions: 

1. What do friends ask me for advice on?

2. What do others recognize me for?

3. When am I fearless?

4. What am I doing when I am totally at ease?

5. What could I do for hours or days on end?

6. The CEO needs me for a special project. What do they come to me for?

7. What am I naturally good at that others struggle with?

Review the common themes in your answers and identify your top 3-5 strengths (again this is when a friend can be helpful!). 

You can also ask yourself the opposite of these questions to discover your weaknesses. For instance, what doesn't come easily? what do I go to others for?

Sometimes, I wish the StrengthsFinders test had an algorithm that took your strengths and spit out exactly what role you should do (ChatGPT can be fun to play around with here). It is not that simple, but we'll get there over the next few weeks.  

For now, just get to know your Strengths more and consider how they show up in your life today. Consider: 

1. To what extent am I using my strengths on a scale of 1 - 10 (a ten being ‘I use them in every single work interaction’)?

2. What would it be like to use them more (i.e., how would it feel)?

3. What tasks or job responsibilities would put my strengths to use? 

4. What weaknesses can I start to shed so I can use my strengths more?

Try this out! Over the next two weeks, use a Strength at least once a day in either a work or personal setting. Pay attention to how to feels. 

Careful, those feelings of ease and flow can be addictive…

And, as always, let me know how it goes or if you get stuck. I'm here for you!

I'll be back in a few weeks with how to use your Operating Principles and Strengths to clarify the North Star or purpose of your career.