In a September 2012 report, the Gallup organization confirmed that more than half of the American adults surveyed don’t use their strengths throughout the day. “57% \[say\] they use them for six hours or fewer each day. About one in four report that they use their strengths at least 10 hours a day.” 

This is a sad statistic, isn’t it? I’d like to examine this concept a bit more, and then share five steps to help ensure you get to use your strengths more throughout each day, every day. 

What is a strength?

According to Gallup, strengths are defined as “activities for which one can consistently provide near-perfect performance.” According to Marcus Buckingham, an expert on strengths, the anatomy of a strength is talent + knowledge + skills. Buckingham defines talent as an innate pattern of thought, feeling, or behavior, whereas knowledge and skills are learned facts, lessons, and steps for doing an activity. 

Why should you strive to work to your strengths?

Individuals who use their strengths to do what they do best report having higher self-confidence, hope, altruism, wellbeing, and productivity, according to Gallup research. Instead of focusing our energy and time on correcting our weaknesses, strengths proponents suggest we merely work to neutralize them. We should spend much greater portions of our limited time and energy resources on cultivating our strengths, because that is the only path to true flourishing.  

How to identify your strengths

There are a few instruments on the market that can help you identify your top strengths. They use slightly different terminology and total number of strengths in their inventories. Ultimately, however, the themes that emerge should be similar. Two of my favorites are the VIA Character Strengths Survey (which is free) and Gallup’s StrengthsFinder2.0 (which requires an access code obtained through purchasing the StrengthsFinder 2.0 book). 

Five steps for increasing your leverage of strengths every day:

1. Identify and learn more about your top strengths. It is important to be clear about what your own top strengths are. Don’t just assume. Take the time to truly assess and understand what your motivations are and what makes you fulfilled. Without these lessons, you will be like a ship without a captain.

2. Assess your current environment and activities. Do your current work environment and role allow you to fully and regularly express, develop, and maximize your top strengths? Write down ways in which you already use your top strengths at work. Then try to think of new ways you hadn’t yet considered and add them to your list. 

3. Talk about it. While how, when, and how much you will be able to talk about strengths will vary from job to job and depend highly on the contextual situation, each of us can find opportunities to share our strengths with those we spend a lot of time with at work. Talk to your manager, staff, and peers both about your strengths and theirs, and about what types of support you could add or new opportunities you could explore to further leverage and develop your strengths. The more external support and understanding you can gain, the more successful you will be at infusing your work with your strengths. 

4. Make a development plan and follow it. To change behavior, you must create an action plan and specific goals or else nothing will really happen. Know exactly what you want to change, why, and how to do it. Then mindfully and consistently implement your plan. Figure out what you need to do more of as well as what you should do less of to allow your strengths to grow. Identify what needs to change, who needs to support you, and what resources will help you in your quest. Decide how you’ll track your progress and identify specific deadlines and milestones. You should even plan how you will celebrate your accomplishments. 

5. Assess your progress regularly. Schedule a regularly occurring appointment with yourself to check on your progress. This may simply mean setting aside a block of time on a monthly or quarterly basis to focus and journal about your experiences, or it may be a time to talk with a trusted mentor, coach, or colleague. Be sure to consider what progress you have made, an assessment of what worked and what didn’t, obstacles that arose and how you handled them, as well as what some potential future obstacles you may need to overcome. Finally, set new goals, tasks, and deadlines that you need to work on to keep your plan active and alive and be sure to schedule your next self-assessment. 

If you follow these five steps, you will hopefully avoid becoming a sad statistic, and instead continue to hone your strengths, use them daily, and thrive in your work regardless of what it is. 

Reference

Half in U.S. Don’t Use Their Strengths Throughout the Day, Gallup Wellbeing, by Dan Witters, Jim Asplund, and Jim Harter, September 12, 2012, (retrieved on September 26, 2012). 

© 2012 ASTD, Alexandria, VA. All rights reserved.