Acknowledging your strengths

Incredible strengths

There is incredible talent in every one of us. You have an artistic streak in you or your manner in dealing with people is extraordinary. You may stand out for your culinary skills or for your green thumb. You are remarkably good at taking care of things or just simply telling stories.

Whether innate or acquired, the talent, the skill, the flair follows us wherever we go. While some of us become well aware of our strengths early on and we see to it that they are explored, others don’t emphasize them enough or just simply forget how much they are capable of doing. It takes no more than looking back into your life story to realize or to rediscover forgotten skills.

Study your personal history

Create your own timeline. Start from as early as you can. Write down all the memories, the events, all the life changing moments, the twists and turns, every challenge, the decisions you made and the outcomes. Your life, family, education, work, hobbies, activities, journeys, will provide you with the proof you need to see how far you’ve come. You will be able to look back and see how much you have accomplished and all of that on the strengths of your own talents.

Study your resumé

You take great care to write the most effective resume for prospective employers to read. Your goal is to lay all your talent out for them and convince them that you are the talent they are seeking. All your potential, all your skills and accomplishments are there in black and white. Before you can make others believe, you need to embrace and take pride of your strengths. Keep going back to your curriculum vita, your biography and you will be surprised to see how many things you can do.

Get the old photo album out

It’s the rare occasion that we get the old and dusty photo album or box with pictures out. As we turn the pages, along with the memories, aspects of ourselves- long forgotten- revisit. Celebrations for yet another milestone, the proud moments, the performances, your first job, the product of your life are all there to remind you how multi-faceted you are.

At home, work and elsewhere

You have left traces of your talents everywhere. Take a good look around the house. It is the hedge fence you grew, the decorating of your room, the picture hanging on the wall you drew, the quilt you made, the iced cake on the table, the framed degrees and certificates. At work, it is the customer calling back, the coworker who comes to you for advice and your plan the company decided to go with. At the community center you do your best as a volunteer. Out in the court you can score like a pro, on the dance floor you know the moves and when everyone panics you keep your cool.

Our individual strengths, our unique talents, however great or small accompany us throughout life. As we develop more career oriented skills we tend to forget or to downplay other just as important talents we possess. Acknowledging and recalling them will give us the added boost of confidence we seek as individuals and as professionals and will inspire us to develop them further.