Strengths What Are My Personal

Strengths What are my personal strengths? What are my weaknesses? Unfortunately, says Marcus Buckingam, most people know the answer to the second question, since they have been blamed and ridiculed for their weaknesses all their lives. However, most individuals do not know their own true strengths. Even if they know their strengths, they feel like they should be working to make their weaknesses stronger, not their strengths stronger. Buckingham says there are several reasons for this. The first is that people are afraid of their weaknesses.

Their perspective is so slanted toward weakness and illness that they know very little about strength and health. Secondly, individuals all have a fear of failure. That is, since failing is not easy to take, some individuals do not want to risk it. However, based on the context of the challenges of strong living, this fear of failure becomes especially difficult to eliminate.

Strong living asks a person to be brave, to be perceptive, to listen for performance feedback from the external world, and, more than all, to keep investigating one's strengths despite the many influences pulling him or her away from them. Third, people do not want to look for their strengths, because they do not believe they have any or they are nothing great to talk about. This way, however, they have no chance to find their strengths at all.

A person has to know, however, what abilities are innate and which ones need to be learned, or practiced over and over until they are honed. That is, what role do skills, knowledge, experience, or self-awareness play in building a strength? If someone does not know how to answer these questions, he or she could waste a great deal of time trying to develop strengths that cannot be developed, or on the other hand, just give up too early on the strengths that can be built.

To answer, talents are naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied. Knowledge includes the facts and lessons that a person has learned. Skills are a person's acquired abilities to perform the basic steps of certain activities. Together, these three factors combine to create an individual's strengths, which are his or her ability to provide consistent, near-perfect performance in given activities.

How does a person manage a talent weakness: 1) by getting a little better at it step-by-step; 2) developing a support system; 3) using a strong theme to overwhelm a weakness; 4) finding a partner to help and 5) just stop doing it. Buckingham gives Tiger Woods as an example. Tiger Woods' had the weakness of being 61st in sand saves. Instead of continuing to work on his weakness, the coaches just got him as far as where the sand saves did not get in the way.

Then they worked on his major strength, his swing. Tiger Woods won the British Open at St. Andrews even despite the fact that it had more bunkers than almost any other course. In fact, he was the only player who never got in one bunker. His swing was so long and so accurate, he did not need anything else. Considering all the time that institutions -- parents raising kids, schools, churches, places of work, friends, etc.

-- spend on criticizing people and telling them to "Sit up," "Study it again," "Do it this way," "Never let me see you doing that again!" It is amazing people ever get ahead. Well, many do not. They get so mired in their problems, worries, inadequacies and self-esteem problems, they do not get far.

But tell a person that she looks good wearing such and such dress, or he is really good at dancing, or you really do that writing well, and that person will want to do it again to get praised. It is true common sense, but not the way that the Western mind works.

How much easier it would be to say instead, Mary should do the dishes, because she is good at it, and Jon clean the house, because that is his forte, and Roxanne take care of the dog since that is her best type of work. It took me about 35 minutes answer all the questions on the test. The results feature five of the Signature Themes, which are to represent the way I naturally think, feel and behave.

My five: Achiever, I have a constant desire to get ahead, to improve, to win (There is no surprise there. Did you ever see me play any kind of sport or game? Even monopoly?) Communication, I like to talk, write, make hand signals, whatever it takes to get my point across.

(This one wasn't a surprise either, considering no one can get a word in edgewise with me) Maximizer, Here I go again, wanting to go one step better than before (and I wanted to know if I am an over achiever?) Activator, I'm anxious for results? Well, of course, look at everything I have to achieve, communicate, maximize. Futurist. I keep pulling into the future. Well, this one is not as strong. I get bogged down in the competition.

Now, what can I, my friends, family and boss do to use these to the best advantage? Achiever: Ask me about goals, give me more expectations, and get me going as a writer or other form of communicator. but, so I don't drive everybody crazy, you better reign me in somewhat by someone strong on focus or discipline. Communication -- Let me talk at the meeting, do the presentation, keep notes at the meeting. Maximizer -- Tell me all about my strengths and let me move ahead on them.

You better not put me with too many inclusive people or anyone who is restorative and wants to stay here and is now fixing things so they are perfect. Activator -- Similar to Achiever Futurist -- This is a good place to put me in order to slow me down some. I'll want to do some planning and strategic work, so it will keep me busy for a while. The important thing about this book, however, is not so much about my strengths.

I am so motivated and achievement driven, there are no surprises here. My parents have been telling me to slow down my whole life (see, playing to my weakness, not strength). How I believe this is going to help me most is with the people that I lead either at work, or as a coach or even as a friend. If I know, for example, that one of my employees has a strong harmonious strength, I should keep him or her away from any conflicts and misunderstandings.

It is better to put this person as head of the cross-functional team at work and help everyone get along. I also have to remember that with me being headstrong and this person being so into agreement, that he or she is not going to tell me when I'm doing something wrong or need to change. I'll need to have some else around who is as change oriented as I am to balance things out. In sports, this will work the.