What’s YOUR Superpower? What’s that you say, you don’t have any superpowers? Pardon me but I disagree. You absolutely have superpowers, but you may not know what they are or how to use them! I’m here to tell you that your Strengths are your Superpowers.
We all have innate strengths in us, things that we are good at, things that just come naturally to us. A Strength by definition is the ability to provide consistent, near perfect performance in a specific activity or task. Your strengths are a combination of the skills (what you do), talents (who you are), and knowledge (what you know) that are unique to you. We all have multiple strengths and while some may be obvious, many of our strengths may go unnoticed, or worse, underutilized, and underappreciated by ourselves and others. As a Learning & Development Professional, I’ve spent many years working with individuals and teams to discover and understand their strengths and what I know is that many of us spend way more time focusing on the things we are not good at (our weaknesses) rather than appreciating and developing the things we ARE good at, our strengths. While you don’t want to ignore your weaknesses, especially if they impact your performance at work, you need to find ways to manage your weaknesses, using the strengths you already have. And stay focused on your strengths.
Identifying and understanding your strengths can benefit you in so many ways, from increasing your self-confidence, to being more engaged, more productive, more fulfilled, and happier because you have the clarity around what makes you unique, what you bring to the table, and how you add value to those around you at home and at work. You also have a greater awareness and appreciation for other people’s strengths. This awareness allows you to partner with others whose strengths compliment yours. This can be extremely beneficial at work.
So how do you identify what your strengths are? There are several ways to identify your strengths. First you can consider the things you enjoy doing most. What activities bring you joy? What are the things that you can spend time doing over and over? Those are your passions. Spend time practicing those activities and pay attention to the broad skills that you utilize during that activity. When you understand your passions and where your natural talents lie, you can focus your efforts into developing those areas. Another way to identify your strengths is to take a look at your day-to-day tasks, both at home and work, pay attention to when you feel the most focused, what characteristics motivate you during those activities? Those characteristics are likely to be related to your bigger strengths. Another way is to ask for feedback on your performance at work from colleagues and managers. People who work with you regularly are a reliable source for what you do best so seek out their opinions. I want to call out here that a good leader will always share with you, your strengths, the areas they see you excelling in, so hopefully your manager provides that vital feedback to you. If they don’t, ask them.
At home, ask family and friends for their opinions on what you do best. Having these different points of view from people who deal with you in different capacities (home vs work) will give you greater insight into things you may not recognize or notice. Lastly, you can take a personality test. There are several options available from Gallup’s StrengthsFinder®, Meyers Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI), or DiSC® to name some of the more popular ones. Personality, preference, and associated behavior tools are helpful because they can identify the areas where you excel as well as identify your propensity for skills and activities you may not have considered or have experiences in.
Whichever way you identify your Strengths, what’s important to know, is that what really matters is what you do next, what you do with the information you receive.
To learn more about identifying and understanding your innate strengths and how to use them as superpowers, reach out and let’s talk!