Are You Doing What You're Best At- Every Day?

As you know, I'm an avid reader. My favorite thing is to read books that are interesting, fun to read, based on research, and readily applicable to help myself and my clients achieve greater success.

I've recently been reading books by Marcus Buckingham, including First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths, classic books in the fields of leadership development and executive coaching.

One of the things I love about these books is that they're based on Gallup research of over 80,000 managers. The managers who perform best and whose teams and departments get the best results show several things in common. One of these is that they and their team members report that they have the opportunity to do what they do best every day. Here's how to do this:

1. Find out what you do best. You may or may not know. When you get Now, Discover Your Strengths you get access to the StrengthsFinder assessment which shows you your core strengths. I found this very illuminating. Or you can get the new StrengthsFinder 2.0 which is more applicable to general audiences (rather than primarily managers).
2. Put your strengths to work. Focus on maximizing your strengths at work rather than making up for your weaknesses.
3. Seek out roles and responsibilities where you will shine. Don't try to be all things to all people, instead, admit your weaknesses and drawbacks and promote what you do well so you get to do more of it.
4. Set up a reminder system. When we get caught up in the daily grind, we often neglect our core strengths. When you remind yourself to use yours, you'll be more likely to do what you do best every day.

I found out that one of my 5 core strengths is "Strategic." This means that I'm good at envisioning the future and foreseeing contingencies. In an effort to use this strength, I spent an hour visioning the future direction of my business the other day. It was invigorating, motivating, and exciting! I really felt like I'd done one of the things I do best that day.

Have you done what you do best yet today? If not, be sure to-- and not just today but everyday!

Thanks for reading,

Larina Kase