Who Are You?
The number of books aimed at helping individuals to better understand themselves cannot be counted, and any attempt to present to you even an overview of this literature would be both futile and not credible one single bit.
Our occidental education system has evolved to an entity whose most important purpose is to train workers for employers: businesses and other organisations aimed at maintaining or increasing our level of life. This system is usually quite performing. As a proof, there is a direct correlation between a given country’s economic indicators, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the level of education of its population.
In fact, all though the education system is supposed to add value to individuals throughout the process, it often fails to help individuals to know basic, yet essential information about them. What I mean by this is that if you ask one hundred individuals to name five of their strengths, you might not be able to encounter ten who can do this. The same might be true about knowing one’s weaknesses.
The sad thing about this occurs when an individual enters the work force or begins making a living for themselves as an entrepreneur. Since neither the education system not the work environment seem to favour individuals to tap on their strengths, its purpose of creating value is not entirely achieve. So, when evaluation time comes for an employee, he or she is told by their superior that they have to develop certain skills that they most frequently do not posses.
In the work environment, many individuals operate too frequently in areas of weaknesses, which forces them to perform below their capacity, thus making their organisation create less value that they potentially could.
What's worse, as most employees receive little positive reinforcement for their achievements, they keep wondering what is wrong with them. As you seek to develop new habits for creating value in your life and in other people’s lives, it is very important to know what your strengths are. Also, you need to seek activities that allow you to operate in your areas of strengths.
Take time management for example. Some individuals are very well organized and use their time very efficiently, while others do not posses that strength. In their evaluation, the people whose strength is not time management will be encouraged to take training to improve on this skill. No matter how much training they go through in time management, it is unlikely that this will never become one of their strengths. At best, they will become average at this particular skill.
It’s as if a parent fails to recognize one of their children’s fundamental personality traits. How they are wired. If a child is introverted and has an interest for processes and tasks, you cannot expect this child to behave or react to the same to certain situations as another child who is extroverted and has a bias towards people.
One of the best methods to get to know what your strengths are has been developed by Marcus Buckingham and Marcus O. Clifton. It is very well presented in their book “Now, Discover your Strengths”. That's actually where I took the time management example from.
With the StrengthFinder tool that they have developed, you can identify what your five dominant strengths are, and from this, understand better how you can maximize your own value and that of the people around you.
According to Buckingham and Clifton, you can have a hint of your strengths by paying attention to those things in your life that way you spontaneously react in a given situation. Also, a yearning to do certain things may reveal the presence of your particular talents. So does the speed at which you learn certain things and the satisfaction that you derive from some activities.
Can you identify and clearly express five of your strengths right now?
The number of books aimed at helping individuals to better understand themselves cannot be counted, and any attempt to present to you even an overview of this literature would be both futile and not credible one single bit.
Our occidental education system has evolved to an entity whose most important purpose is to train workers for employers: businesses and other organisations aimed at maintaining or increasing our level of life. This system is usually quite performing. As a proof, there is a direct correlation between a given country’s economic indicators, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the level of education of its population.
In fact, all though the education system is supposed to add value to individuals throughout the process, it often fails to help individuals to know basic, yet essential information about them. What I mean by this is that if you ask one hundred individuals to name five of their strengths, you might not be able to encounter ten who can do this. The same might be true about knowing one’s weaknesses.
The sad thing about this occurs when an individual enters the work force or begins making a living for themselves as an entrepreneur. Since neither the education system not the work environment seem to favour individuals to tap on their strengths, its purpose of creating value is not entirely achieve. So, when evaluation time comes for an employee, he or she is told by their superior that they have to develop certain skills that they most frequently do not posses.
In the work environment, many individuals operate too frequently in areas of weaknesses, which forces them to perform below their capacity, thus making their organisation create less value that they potentially could.
What's worse, as most employees receive little positive reinforcement for their achievements, they keep wondering what is wrong with them. As you seek to develop new habits for creating value in your life and in other people’s lives, it is very important to know what your strengths are. Also, you need to seek activities that allow you to operate in your areas of strengths.
Take time management for example. Some individuals are very well organized and use their time very efficiently, while others do not posses that strength. In their evaluation, the people whose strength is not time management will be encouraged to take training to improve on this skill. No matter how much training they go through in time management, it is unlikely that this will never become one of their strengths. At best, they will become average at this particular skill.
It’s as if a parent fails to recognize one of their children’s fundamental personality traits. How they are wired. If a child is introverted and has an interest for processes and tasks, you cannot expect this child to behave or react to the same to certain situations as another child who is extroverted and has a bias towards people.
One of the best methods to get to know what your strengths are has been developed by Marcus Buckingham and Marcus O. Clifton. It is very well presented in their book “Now, Discover your Strengths”. That's actually where I took the time management example from.
With the StrengthFinder tool that they have developed, you can identify what your five dominant strengths are, and from this, understand better how you can maximize your own value and that of the people around you.
According to Buckingham and Clifton, you can have a hint of your strengths by paying attention to those things in your life that way you spontaneously react in a given situation. Also, a yearning to do certain things may reveal the presence of your particular talents. So does the speed at which you learn certain things and the satisfaction that you derive from some activities.
Can you identify and clearly express five of your strengths right now?
posted by GRK at 10:48 a.m.
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