There is no more effective way to empower people than to see each person in terms of his or her strengths. – Donald O. Clifton, Ph. D. – Psychologist, Educator, Author, Researcher and Father of Strengths Psychology,
This quote from Dr. Donald (Don) Clifton encouraged me to discover my talents and develop them into strengths. Leveraging on your innate strengths can bring out the best in you and helps you towards success.
Gallup defined strength as the ability to consistently produce a positive outcome through near-perfect performance in a specific task. This can be achieve starting with the discovery of your talents – naturally recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behavior that can be productively applied (Gallup) and investing on them through time spent practicing your talents, developing your skills, building your knowledge base and growing in character. This is called the Strengths Formula by Gallup.
Start with Talent
Again, Gallup defined talent as a naturally recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behavior that can be productively applied. Everyone of us has God-given talents that we might not discover yet. There might be some instances that you tried to mimic someone’s success but it led you to frustrations because of the inability to apply the same formula in your life. One of the possible reasons is that you might not be tapping into your own innate talents, but rather, trying to do things using your weaknesses.
According to Gallup, the key to success is to fully understand how to apply your greatest talents and strengths in your everyday life. When you discover your greatest talents, you’ll discover your greatest opportunities for excellence, success and contribution.
Dr. Clifton and a group of researchers invented an assessment tool, now known as CliftonStrengths, to help millions of people discover their natural talents – what they do best. Based on more than five decades of research, they came up with 34 themes of talents. Each theme gives you a way to describe what you naturally do best, or what you might need help from others to accomplish (Gallup).
Investing On Your Talents
Now that you discovered your talents, it’s time to invest into them. Like our physical bodies, we need to exercise, build a healthy habits to improve and strengthen it. The same way with our innate talents.
Building a habit to acknowledge and understand your talents, using them, developing your skills and growing in your character, can lead you to strengths.
Finish With Strength
According to the studies conducted by Gallup, people who focus on using their strengths are:
People working in their strengths zone:
I had taken the CliftonStrengths assessment way back 2011 and it really helped me to understand how I feel, think and behave and as well productively respond to situations using my strengths.
How About Weaknesses?
Focusing on your strengths does not mean that you disregard your weaknesses.
So, identifying your weaknesses is as important as identifying your strengths. But don’t be mistaken — there is no such thing as “fixing” a weakness. You can manage a weakness; you can’t truly fix it. You simply need to be aware of your weaknesses, take responsibility for them and then use your strengths to manage them. – Gallup
Through understanding my strengths, I am able to become aware of my weaknesses and learn how to use my strengths to manage them.
For more details on Strengths-based development, you can visit https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths.
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