Those are pretty impressive stats. Wouldn’t it be great to be totally engaged in your job? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have an excellent quality of life and career?

The old paradigm which operated from schools to organizations – was essentially gap-analysis. If you were weak at a particular area, you needed to throw a lot of time, money and effort at it, to possibly become – adequate – at it? Even the word is luke-warm.

You are far more likely to excel at something you have a natural talent for and will hone your skills quicker than slogging your way to adequacy on something that you don’t have a natural inclination towards. This is not to say you can’t become good at something – you will, however, require more effort to get there. If you’re not a natural golfer, you might well spend a huge chunk of your life practising, but will probably never be champion-class. You will inevitably become an expert at it faster if you have an innate talent for it. Your confidence levels and enthusiasm will also be effortlessly higher.

There is an exponential curve to doing what you’re good at – the more you do of it, the faster you excel at it.

It’s important to know what your developmental areas are too so that you can either avoid or outsource those where possible, leaving you to concentrate on what you’re good at.

Resources for determining your strengths:

Strengthsfinder 2.0 by Tom Rath- this book allows you to do an online assessment of 34 different strengths, based on extensive research, and offers ways to exploit these qualities.

VIA Signature Strengths Survey- www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu

Dr Martin Seligman, Director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania and founder of positive psychology, offers a free on-line test identifying 24 top strength qualities.

Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham co-developer of the Strengthsfinder test. He offers deeper insights into identifying talents, building them into strengths, resulting in a consistent near-perfect performance. His books should be handbooks for all managers by helping staff feel empowered and strong in their jobs.

Once you know your strengths, be guided regularly by the following questions:

• Where do I use these strengths already?
• When, how often, doing what activity?
• How can I use these strengths in other situations?
• How can I develop these strengths?
• How can you build your life and work around these strengths?

Ack: Adam Chalker, creator of the Personal Growth Library

Enjoy discovering and harnessing what makes you strong, as well as identifying which areas you need to deal with differently.