Know Your Strengths - Part Three

A solid understanding of your top strengths and talents is essential to creating your own career success. Knowing what you're good at allows you to steer your career in the most satisfying and fulfilling direction.

When I embark on a coaching program with a new client, I like to start out by getting a sense of her greatest strengths and talents. When I ask clients to share their top skills, I'm usually met with stunned silence. Most people cannot say what they're good at! For many people, this is due to a combination of not wanting to brag and simply not knowing (or not owning) their gifts and talents.

Everyone has areas in which they excel. Too often, women overlook or devalue their greatest strengths. Since certain skills come to them so naturally, they assume everyone possesses these same gifts. Even though a certain assignment may feel effortless to you, others may struggle to complete the same task with ease.

To continue with the process of identifying your top professional strengths, ask yourself the following powerful question:

Throughout my career, when have I experienced the most satisfaction?

Identifying what gives you the greatest sense of accomplishment will give you a lot of important clues about your top career strengths.

Until next week, here’s to your continued success!

~Maret~

Know Your Strengths – Part Two

A solid understanding of your top strengths and talents is essential to creating your own career success. Knowing what you’re good at allows you to steer your career in the most satisfying and fulfilling direction.

When I embark on a coaching program with a new client, I like to start out by getting a sense of her greatest strengths and talents. When I ask clients to share their top skills, I’m usually met with stunned silence. Most women cannot say what they’re good at! For many women, this is due to a combination of not wanting to brag and simply not knowing (or not owning) their gifts and talents.

Everyone has areas in which they excel. Too often, women overlook or devalue their greatest strengths. Since certain skills come to them so naturally, they assume everyone possesses these same gifts. Even though a certain assignment may feel effortless to you, others may struggle to complete the same task with ease.

To continue with the process of identifying your top professional strengths, ask yourself the following powerful question:

Throughout my career, what assignments have been easy for me to accomplish?

Identifying what comes naturally to you will give you a lot of important clues about your greatest career strengths.

Know Your Strengths – Part One

A solid understanding of your top strengths and talents is essential to creating your own career success. Knowing what you’re good at allows you to steer your career in the most satisfying and fulfilling direction.

When I embark on a coaching program with a new client, I like to start out by getting a sense of her greatest strengths and talents. When I ask clients to share their top skills, I’m usually met with stunned silence. Most women cannot say what they’re good at! For many women, this is due to a combination of not wanting to brag and simply not knowing (or not owning) their gifts and talents.

Everyone has areas in which they excel. Too often, women overlook or devalue their greatest strengths. Since certain skills come to them so naturally, they assume everyone possesses these same gifts. Even though a certain assignment may feel effortless to you, others may struggle to complete the same task with ease.

To launch your process of identifying your top professional strengths, ask yourself the following powerful question:

Throughout my career, when have I experienced the most joy on the job?

Think about the times you’ve felt most engaged and alive at work. This will give you a lot of important clues about your greatest career strengths.

~ Maret ~

Should I stay or should I go? (Part 5 - END)

To recap what we've accomplished this month:

• Step 1 - Listed gripes / frustrations
• Step 2 - Listed what we like about our job
• Step 3 - Expanded on our gripes: what is it that bugs us?
• Step 4 - Expanded on our 'likes': what it is that we appreciate?
• Step 5 - Dig deeper on gripes - what is at the core?
• Step 6 - Fixes - what can we do to eliminate/reduce these core concerns?
• Step 7 - Write out and start to implement an action plan to improve our quality of life at work
• Step 8 - now that you've done a lot of venting, digging, appreciating what is good, how are you feeling about your work? What have you discovered?

It's common to realize that there's really a lot more 'good' than 'bad' and that the job fit is be better than we thought. Often it's 'what's between our ears' that is giving us the biggest problem. This is terrific news! Why? Because we have full control over, and can change how we perceive, respond and engage at work. This is not to say that it's easy to change our habits and self-talk, nevertheless, it can be done.

So what are the next steps?

1. Decide - do you want to stay, do you want to look for a new job, or do a little more reflection? (You can weigh each area on the 'likes' and 'gripes' and rate its importance to see how the two sides compare.)

2. As a result of this work, what do you want to take action on? Do you need support on moving forward on your action plan? (Of course working with a coach can be helpful here!)

Remember we tend to get what we focus on. Are you focusing on what you want more of?

~Gwyneth Anne~

Should I Stay Or Should I Go? Part 4

So far we’ve clearly identified areas that are bothering us at work.

We’ve also identified what it is about these areas that is bothering us, included digging a little deeper and looking for the ‘theme’ or core concern.

Which ‘theme’ or core concern came up the most frequently?
Which two core concerns, if addressed, or greatly reduce your angst?

Step 6 - let’s identify what we can do to ‘fix’ these concerns.

For example, if you’re concerned that you don’t have the knowledge/skills for your position and it has you feeling less than confident, what are some ways you can this knowledge and these skills? Perhaps sign up for seminars, go back to school at a junior college or to get an MBA. Who do you know who is proficient in this area? Would you like to ask him/her to be your mentor? Would a coach help you gain the confidence you need and help you stretch your comfort zone?

For ‘boundaries’ and ‘standards’ concerns, is there someone specific with whom you need to have a serious discussion? Perhaps your boss isn’t aware of the time and your need to pick up your child. Or is there an earlier time that you could drop by his/her office and initiate the ‘catch up’
conversation?

This week, step 7, write out an action plan you could implement to greatly improve your quality of life at work.

Which two actions will you take this week?

Specifically how and when will you take action?

~Gwyneth Anne~

Should I stay or should I go? (Part 3)

So how did your observations go last week? What interesting observations did you make regarding ‘what you like’?

Did you have more, about the same or fewer items of frustration on your list than you had anticipated?

This week is Step 5 in the process and we’ll fill in column C. Take a look at column B. What themes did you find in column B? When you look below the surface, what was really the issue?

It’s common to find a few themes. One is insecurity. I see this frequently when people change jobs and/or get promoted up in an organization. We are still trying to figure out who’s responsible for what, how people tend to react, who the important players are, etc.

We also often discover that we need to increase our knowledge base and skills. For one client it was gaining broader knowledge as her responsibility wasn’t just a slice of marketing, but now marketing at large. Another client needed to learn supervisory skills.

The good news is these are things we can learn!

Other themes can be around what coaching calls ‘boundaries’ and ‘standards’. Do you feel that people are taking advantage of your time (such as the example of the boss who wants to ‘catch up’ at 5pm when you’re trying to leave to pick up your daughter)? Or you feel that the quality of work going out to a customer is sub-par because of the lack of planning or cost-cutting measures?

This week, look below the surface and identify the common themes that are causing you distress.

~Gwyneth~

Should I stay or should I go? (Part 2)

Step 3

Let’s expand a bit on each item you don’t like (column B). What is it that gripes you? What is causing the frustration? For example, as one of my client’s recently complained “I hate it that my boss always comes in at noon. The day is half over!” OK, now why is it that this bothers you? Do you want support in the morning, and s/he is unavailable?

Do you have to take on more work because s/he’s not there to respond to urgent requests in a different time zone? Are you annoyed, because when you’re trying to go home, your boss is just getting rolling and wants to ‘bend your ear’ about what’s going on at 5pm instead of 10am?

You may be thinking “Wait a minute. I thought a coach would have me think about everything positive, not focus on the negative!” Until we put down on paper our frustrations, it’s some times hard to see and move beyond them.

Step 4

Simultaneously on the ‘What I like’ sheet of paper do this same exercise.

What is it about the flexible hours that you really like? That this gives you time to be with your son in the evening? That you can take time off to attend important events and make up the hours at another time during the week?

This week, objectively track in column A what causes you tension and column B look inside and describe why it is bothering you, as well as what you like and why you like it.

~ Gwyneth Anne~