Squiggly Skill Sprint Day 20: Strengths

It’s day 20, the final day, of the Squiggly Careers sprint, and today’s topic is your strengths https://www.amazingif.com/listen/skills-sprint-strengths/

The point made in the podcast is that strengths are not what you are good at, but things that give you energy. This very much rings true for me, as someone that moved from development into a support role. I often say that the people that worked for me could easily have done more development-focused roles, but got more energy from working on a variety of tasks in a dynamic environment.

This topic feels rather foundational to me. I’ve done exercises to identify strengths before, often from Helen and Sarah, and I’ve had a lot of time to reflect in the last month, often driven by the 19 other topics in the sprint.

We all see lots of Venn diagrams and similar posts on social media that talk about the intersection of what you are good at, what you love doing, and what brings purpose. Sadly for many people, what gives them energy can often not be what they can either get a job doing, or get as much money as something that you are good at.

Saying that, the things that people are naturally drawn to are probably things that they get energy from. As I have written in other posts from the sprint, one of the most challenging but rewarding inputs you can do is to get honest feedback from other people.

One of the last things that I did before my redundancy was running an internal seminar on confidence and resilience in the workplace. That was something I had really wanted to do for a long time, and something that I was able to pull together really quickly as I was so passionate about it. I’m grateful for the chance, but also for all the kind words people sent afterwards, often citing specific examples & actions they took from it.

The lesson from that… Don’t be shy to pass on compliments and give positive feedback to people, especially when they do something not normal for them. You never know how important and scary that step was for them, and how much that affirmation can help them realise that there is value in what they care about doing.