deepstash
Beta
A Better Way to Discover Your Strengths
Create your self-portrait
When the stories roll in, you’ll be surprised to see that some of your sources comment on strengths you didn’t know you had, and experiences you didn’t remember.
Using this information, write out a brief profile of who you are when you’re at your best.
104 SAVES
This is a professional note extracted from an online article.
Read more efficiently
Save what inspires you
Remember anything
IDEA EXTRACTED FROM:
5
Key Ideas
How to recognize your strengths
If you want to excel at anything, it’s not enough to fix your weaknesses. You also need to leverage your strengths.
If you want to recognize your strengths, you need other people to hold up a mirror. When you see your reflection through the eyes of those who know you well, you can begin to identify your most unique talents.
Choose your sources
Identify 10-20 people who know you well from a mix of personal and professional contacts, and ask them to write a story about a time when you were at your best. It is best if the sources are specific with concrete examples.
Spot patterns
Once the feedback arrives, look for the common themes that appear in multiple stories. Make a list of the themes, the key examples that support each theme, and what they suggest about your strengths.
Create your self-portrait
When the stories roll in, you’ll be surprised to see that some of your sources comment on strengths you didn’t know you had, and experiences you didn’t remember.
Using this information, write out a brief profile of who you are when you’re at your best.
Put your strengths into action
Create an action plan for how and when you’ll utilize your strengths.
If you don’t map out a plan for using your strengths, the benefits will fade.
SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
5
Key Ideas
Developing our strengths
Although we usually see our weaknesses as more changeable than our strengths, research shows that we should not focus on improving our weak parts, but to develop our strengths.
Identifying strengths
Try to see your strengths in relation to what energizes you. Something is a strength if:
- it makes you feel successful
- you're drawn to it
- it fully engages you
- after doing that activity, you feel energized and fulfilled.
Ask the people around you
It's difficult for us to see our own strengths, but people around us (friends, coworkers, family members, mentors) will most likely see them clearly.
The goal is to identify things that you wouldn't have thought of on your own—or to find patterns.
2 more ideas
7
Key Ideas
Personal Or Core Values
They are what you consider most important in your life, literally what you “value. ” They are broad concepts that can be applied across a wide range of circumstances, as opposed to narrow answers t...
The Benefits Of Having a Core Value
- Having a core values list helps you make better decisions. The decisions you make come more quickly and efficiently than they would without it.
- Being unconscious of your core values makes you likely to keep repeating the same mistakes.
Creating a List Of Personal Values
The core values that are most valuable to each of us come from our own personal experience, not from being taught.
As you put them into practice you’ll get better at internalizing these values and they’ll express themselves subconsciously with smaller decisions, as well.
4 more ideas
3
Key Ideas
Excuses Breed More Failure
When you are disappointed, you have two choices on how to respond: You can find out how you could have done it differently, or you can tell yourself that you were not at fault.
Personal Responsibility Breeds Success
Making excuses allows you to externalize your failures and blame something else. It also demotivates you when you feel the outcomes in your life are out of your control.
Taking up responsibility does the opposite: It leads to introspection where you can analyze what you could have done differently. It will motivate you to work better and harder.
How To Stop Making Excuses
It all comes down to the stories you tell yourself when you feel overwhelmed or fail.
If you work too much and don’t have time for fun, do you tell yourself that people demand too much from you? Or, do you tell yourself you don’t prioritize your own time well enough?
In one story you are in control, and the other you are not. Focus on the story you can control.
10
Key Ideas
Reframing your mindset
Stop reacting to life and start responding to it.
If you want to really change, you need to start reframing your mindset. You’re not in control of everything that happens to you, but y...
What mindset is
A mindset is a set of assumptions, methods, or notations that is so established that it creates a powerful incentive within you to continue to adopt or accept prior behaviours, choices, or tools.
It’s so powerful that it affects every decision-making process. It predetermines your responses and interpretations of situations.
7 more ideas
5
Key Ideas
Talent vs strength
Individuals have the tendency to consider that what they do better are the things they have long been working on. However, if we take a second to think about it, each and every one of us has at lea...
Adopt an encouraging attitude
A true leader should not only be able to identify his team members’ talent but also to encourage them into making the most of their natural gifts.
There are a few techniques that enable leaders to name exactly the talents of each and every member of their team, such as finding out what annoys them the most, as often humans find it upsetting to see reflected their own strengths into the others’ weaknesses.
Overlooked qualities
One sure way to identify your strengths is by paying attention to what you find as effortless in regards to whatever action you do, but the others tend to see it as a complex action.
That is right, it might seem a piece of cake to you because you were gifted with certain qualities that enable you to perform the task so easily. However, the task in question might not be at all that easy.
2 more ideas
10
Key Ideas
Donate When You Buy
When you order from Amazon, use “smile.amazon.com.”
You choose the charity, and they donate a portion of your eligible orders at no cost to you.
Support Your Friends’ Businesses
“Like,” “Share,” or comment on your friend’s business content.
It’s easy, free, and strengthens your friendship, and their business.
Box Up Leftovers
Instead of taking leftovers home to have them spoil, consider giving it to someone in need.
7 more ideas
3
Key Ideas
Focus On Baby Steps
For some goals, you need to sustain something for a long time, but most can be broken down into smaller, more approachable goals.
Dividing goals makes the process seem less overwhelm...
Weaknesses Holding You Back
Take a minute to think about what you always wanted to do, or what you’re doing now. Ask yourself:
- What are your fears?
- What do you see as your weaknesses?
- What are your limitations?
- What’s holding you back?
Turn Your Weaknesses Into Strengths
Believe that your weaknesses can be turned into strengths. Always find your strengths, examine your weaknesses and how to turn them into an advantage by using your strengths or developing new ones to find ways around it.
10
Key Ideas
The benefits of generosity
Generous people report being happier, healthier, and more satisfied with life than those who don’t give.
Generosity produces within us the sense that we are shaping the world around us into a...
Embrace gratitude
Make a list of the things in your life for which you are grateful.
Sometimes, the most important step you can take to become more generous is to consider what you already possess.
Start really small
Give, even if you start with $1 to an online charity. It does not matter what amount you choose, jump right in with something small to help build momentum in your life towards generosity.
7 more ideas