How can you identify activities that
* make you feel strong (g84)
* improve the most as you train and practice (g76 & 77).
This subject is tackled by the book Go Put Your Strengths To Work by Marcus Buckingham. A partial summary and some comments are written below. For more detail read the book itself.
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The author defines strengths as consisting of
* innate interests and talents which are portable between situations
* learned knowledge and skills which are situation specific
Interest is the most important because it provides the energy to practice enough to obtain any needed knowledge and skills required to develop a strength. While talent suggests potential strength, research indicates that exceptional performance usually requires “spending a lot of time perfecting it” (g86). And, “very few of us maintain a strong appetite for an activity in which we clearly have no ability” (g87). In the end “your appetites determine which activities you yearn to practice and which ones you don’t” (g86).
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So, the goal becomes developing an “interest statement” that is:
* specific enough to turn you on
* general enough that it is useful as a tool to test and filter in/out what activities you should do more/less of. (g96)
This process involves catching specific examples, clarifying and rewriting them in a more generalizable form, and confirming they work. See details below
CATCH specific activity examples
Start by looking alertly at the jumble of activities that fill your days and then capture those you love by instantly writing down exactly what you are doing as you feel the love. Look for those activities that give you a real emotional charge, a significantly positive feeling that make you feel stronger or wanting more. If you find nothing gives you a real charge then start by listing the top 10% (likes) and bottom 10% (dislikes).
Two activity examples the book’s author caught were:
“I interviewed Rosa — interesting lady”
“Preparing for a presentation to the Chick-fil-A group” (g101).
These may not do much for you but they were two specific activities that turned him on during the week.
Three things to look for during this “catching” process are how you feel before, during, and after a specific activity.
* Before: Did you feel an instinctive pull towards doing it? Do you find yourself putting yourself in situations where you will have to perform it? (g81)
* During: Did you feel inquisitive, interested, or involved while doing it? Was it easy, enjoyable, effortless? Did you feel challenged, but in just the way you like to be challenged? (g83) Did you want to keep on doing it? Flow, or getting deeply involved because you are getting a series of little emotional charges from successfully meeting a series of interesting yet doable challenges, is shown by research to be where most people reach their peak of happiness. This was true even when they didn’t realize it during the flow itself.
* After: You may be tired but rather than feeling drained afterwards did you feel the exact opposite –fulfilled, powerful, all-is-right-with-the-world. Did it just feel right; if so then “you want this feeling again, and you’ll put yourself through a lot to get it.” (g84)
* Finally: Did you feel effective at it, or like you would like to be or could be effective at it.
The author uses an acronym to describe things to look for called SIGN. This stands for
* Success – Feeling of natural efficacy, a comparative strength.
* Instinct – Draws you in before. Feeling of pull.
* Growth – Keeps you focused during activity. Feeling of easy, inquisitive, involved flow.
* Need – “Makes you feel great afterwards, which in turn fuels the Instinct that draws you back in” (g86). This “just right” feeling is something you want more of.
CLARIFY
The specific activities you captured provide raw materials needed for clarifying strength statements. These strength statements will then help make it clear, during changing circumstances, the answers to such questions as: Where should I spend more of my time? Which new skills should I learn? Which projects should I seek out? (g102)
To “clarify” your stength statement the next steps are:
* prioritize the specific activity examples you caught and then, for the top ones,
* ask “Does it matter why/who/when/what/where/how I do this activity?”
You are searching to discover what aspects of the activity are
- really critical and must be present and
- largely irrelevant and can usually be ignored.
The author did this clarification process with his two activity examples and came up with the following strength statements:
* Activity example 1: “I interviewed Rosa — interesting lady” led to
* Resulting strength statement 1:
“I feel strong … when I interview someone who excels at his job and am exploring why he excels.”
* Activity example 2: “Preparing for a presentation to the Chick-fil-A group” (g101) led to
* Resulting strength statement 2:
“I feel strong … when I present but only (a) to a large group of people, (b) on a subject I know a lot about, (c) when I’m completely prepared, and (d) when I know my presentation will further a mission.”
His strength statements (yours will be completely different, of course) were
* specific & precise enough so that they would always turn him on
* generalizable enough to help him judge what to do next in a variety of new situations. (g96)
CONFIRM
Once you have some good strength statements then confirm that they will work well for you as filtering tools.
Review them to confirm they show the SIGNs of a strength:
* Success: I’ve had several signs that I have been or can be successful at this type of activity.
* Instinct: I feel a gut attraction for this type of activity and thus do it often.
* Growth: I pick up this activity quickly. I’m interested in learning about it and find myself thinking about it often.
* Need: I enjoy looking forward towards and back at this type of activity.
Make sure that the type of activity your strength statement describes gives you a feeling of urgency and the extreme positive reactions so characteristic of a strength. Make sure it is just right. Perhaps you left out one small but crucial element. Or, perhaps you didn’t refine strength statement enough so that it will always be valid.
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FOLLOW THROUGH
Once you have some strength statements start using them for practical guidance about what specific activities you should do more of next week. You don’t have to understand everything since this is a learning by observation process. But do get started. And stay inquisitive and learn by experiencing the doing itself.
Just by realizing you are making progress
- learning more about your strengths and
- increasing the possibilities for spending more of your future time using them
should start making your current work more enjoyable.
In general, make it your goal to learn and improve from the feedback you receive each day. That is why top athletes don’t find practice boring; during each practice session they are working on doing something specific better than last time. It’s not just how long they practice, it’s how they practice.
Begin to deliberately fill each new week with more and more specific activities that fit your strength statements than you did the last week. Begin building towards your strengths by playing to some aspect of these activities — it might be the “seeking out the right person to interview” aspect of number one, or the “preparing presentation aspect” of number two (g93).
To free your strengths will require you to do more of those activities that come naturally to you. The world is indifferent to you and your strengths. So it is up to you and you alone to push yourself to come up with specific things you can do to capitalize on your strengths a little more this week than you did last week. (g121).
Every week complete a strong week plan for making it as close to an ideal week as possible (g249). In your plan identify and push toward two specific activities (strengths) and away from two others (weaknesses).
Every day look over your top three Strength Statements and your worst three Weakness Statements. (g248). Always keep them in mind so that you begin noticing opportunities to use them to tell you what to do next.
Do it, study it, then redo it again and better the next week until your strengths are FREE
* Focus: Identify how and where this strength helps you in your current role. (g138 )
* Release: Find the missed opportunities in your current role. (g140)
* Educate: Learn new skills and techniques to build this strength. (g143)
* Expand: Build your job around this strength. (g147).
References:
g??? Page numbers following the “g” reference are from
Go Put Your Strengths To Work by Marcus Buckingham
