Imagine this scenario: A baker needs to give his wife the perfect gift. So, he goes out shopping for something to give her. He browses through jewelry at the jewelry store, but he doesn’t know how to tell what she would like.
He looks at some lingerie, but he doesn’t know anything about it. In the end, he buys her a book, even though he isn’t sure what she likes to read. All of this time, instead of trying to buy her gifts that he knows nothing about, he could have baked the perfect cake or other pastry.
Now, this isn’t a perfect analogy. Most bakers’ wives probably eat so much cake that they would hate it as a gift. But the point is that many people try to be successful without using a single one of their strengths.
Writers try to make a fortune by building websites. Website designers try to make a fortune by writing novels. People don’t use their strengths nearly as often as they should to achieve success.
Here are some things that you can do to make sure that you are using your strengths to help you achieve your goals and become successful.
1. Know what your strengths actually are. Sit down and make a list of things that you are good at. Identify the ones that you are best at and put them at the top of the list.
2. Determine how you can apply each strength to being successful. If you are looking for some way to become financially independent, then evaluate your strengths in relation to that. If you have already chosen a route to success, then determine how your strengths might be able to help you go further.
3. Write down your goals if you haven’t already. Then look at each goal and adjust it so that you are using your strengths to their full potential to help you achieve those goals.
4. Break your goals down further into short-term goals like monthly or weekly ones and do the same thing with your strengths.
5. Finally, break your goals down into daily habits and decide how those same strengths can help you stick by your habits, replacing the bad ones with good ones.
6. Continue these self-evaluations regularly and make sure that you are using your strength instead of things that you aren’t good at to achieve success.