You are good at something! In fact, you are GREAT at something! Chances are you have an idea or two about the thing (actually many things) that you are great at!
But I know from my experiences in life that the world LOVES to tell us all the things that we’re not good at and the things that we should fix about our lives and about ourselves (mostly I blame advertising, but in truth it’s probably a lot more complicated).
Since I know someone out there will read this and say "I believe everyone is good at something, but not me", (I know I've done this), what do we do when we believe that we AREN’T good at something? How do we come to believe that we ARE good at something or lots of somethings?
One of the best things I have ever done to recognize my strengths is to ask. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do, but I picked about 5 people who know me well and I asked them to give me a list of strengths that they saw in me. I was actually surprised by some of the things that made the list.... Things that I had become convinced I wasn’t good at.
Another thing that will help you recognize your strengths is to stop comparing yourself with everyone else. Chances are that you’re not playing professional sports, writing award winning books, or running a huge corporation. So, chances are, that you’re not THE BEST in that sort of sense… but maybe you make the best chocolate chip cookies, everyone can trust you to listen to them unconditionally, or you placed in the top runners in a local 5K. Trust that those things make you AWESOME even if you think you can’t do something as well as your friend, neighbor, or coworker!!!
Now that we’ve talked ever so briefly about how we recognize our strengths, what do we do when we find some?
The world is full of messages of inadequacy, so when I find something that I’m good at that’s when I lean into it. I find every opportunity to do what I’m good at and it does a couple of things for me. It helps me see and be reminded of the things that I do well. It helps me minimize the voices that tell me I’m not good enough. It helps me see other things that I’m good at, too! It also helps me to lift up other people, which just feels really good.
So until next time… what are you good at? How can you find out? How can you do that more?