How good are you at tapping into your strengths?

Most people don’t tap into their strengths enough. Often people take their strengths for granted because they use them so regularly and often miss opportunities to tap into them fully and develop them to shape their work life.

Strengths are characteristics and qualities that make us unique and which energise us. Often we’re already really good at tapping into our strengths but sometimes we only go half way and don’t realise that we have the potential to become really good at using them.

Focusing your career life towards your strengths is a good idea for multiple reasons. Research tells us that people who regularly use their strengths in their work life report higher levels of well-being, self-confidence, motivation and job satisfaction as well as lower levels of stress, more effective problem-solving and greater career success.

The first thing you need to do if you want to use your strengths more at work is to be clear on what your strengths are. It sounds so obvious, but as we progress in life our strengths can change so identifying what they are in the present day is a good starting point.

Write down the things that you enjoy most about work and which give you the greatest sense of satisfaction and lead to those feelings of ‘flow’, where you’re in the zone and fully immersed in what you’re doing. Make a note of what your work colleagues say your strengths are. If you’ve done a recent strength assessment then note down any points that were highlighted on what you love most about your work. Now you've identified your strengths use these top tips to take them further.

Three ways you can tap into your strengths at work.

1. Aim to inject energy into your work every day using your strengths

On a daily basis, start to get in the habit of asking yourself how you can use your strengths more so you have fun and gain more energy from your work. This is about using the strengths you have to do it your way, reflecting some of your own personality, rather than feeling you have to do it the 'taught way’ to get a good outcome.

Here’s an example:- If you're creating a new project, you might use your Problem Solving strength to work up a new imaginative plan, then you might tap into your strong Communication Skills strength to make sure your plan’s going to work for all the teams involved and not miss any important steps. Lastly you could use your Results focus strength to feel good about completing each stage of the project. Using personal strengths on a daily basis to get more out of work will bring a sense of satisfaction and motivation.

If you’re starting to think ‘what do I do if my strengths are different?’ Well, use the strengths you do have…perhaps Leadership is more your strength rather than 'creating the ideas' so in this case you can bring together a project team to achieve the goal, you could also use your Motivation strength to inject some enthusiasm into the team and spur them on. If some project adaptations are needed you could use your Flexibility strength to change direction and keep the team and goal on track. With a bit of lateral thinking, you’ll be able to weave your strengths into your role so that you’re using those qualities that bring you joy more of the time.

2. Develop super strengths

Which of your strengths would you like to develop even more so it becomes your super strength and can support weaker areas?

Here’s an example - you’re known as having a strong Collaborative and Team strength and yet you find pitches to new clients a challenge. This is a prime opportunity to tap into your Collaboration and Team strength to create a joint presentation with a colleague so you can present to the client together. This kind of approach will keep you energised because you're using your strengths and also it will help you develop some new skills and confidence so you can build up to presenting to a client on your own perhaps next time.

Powering up your strengths with others at work is a good idea as in the example above. Working with colleagues who have complementary strengths to you and sharing strengths with others reminds you of where you can add greatest value to your team and in your work role.

3. Adapt your strengths to help you manage your stress

We all experience stress in our daily lives and often in these situations we react the same way and rely on the same strengths to get us out of high adrenaline moments. Instead of using the ‘same strengths’ strategy an ‘alternative strengths’ strategy is needed. By knowing your strengths you can adapt, relax the usual strength strategy that is starting to burn out and bring in a new one that will enhance your performance. For example, using a Goal Focused strength too much when a project isn’t going to plan might cause more frustration and team conflict. In this instance an alternative strengths strategy is needed e.g. using a Team Focused strength to make sure that the team is working together to support the delivery of the project and consider bringing in new team members with new skills and experiences to fill any gaps and still achieve the project deadline.

At Meaningful Recruitment we believe that identifying your strengths and using them on a daily basis can truly enhance your career path and help steer you in the direction that is you-shaped and authentic. It’s all too easy to fall into the negativity bias trap but with these top tips and a deeper awareness, you can turn things around and inject more energy, feel valued and maintain motivation.

If you need help tapping into your strengths and need some career direction consider the one to one career coaching packages that we offer www.meaningfulrecruitment.co.uk/packages . Tap into your strengths this summer and use the discount code below.