We spend the greatest part of our waking hours working. I believe it is therefore crucial that we enjoy our work. One way of making sure work is a joy, is to ensure you are maximising on your talents.
5 Tips on how to maximise on your talents:
- Discover your talents
Take an honest look at yourself and identify the things you love doing. Not the things you are good at – that is not enough. It is about what gives you energy, what you look forward to doing today. A talent is about the activity where you don’t realise the time flying by, you do it well over and over again and it gives you mental energy. You might be physically tired but mentally energised.
- Find ways to use your talents more
Once you have identified your talents, look at ways to use them more often. The more you use your talents, the better you will become at it, the more you’ll enjoy your work. Additionally, you can even use your talents to carry out tasks you are not that fond of. Maybe you can come to the same if not better results through more fun ways.
- Focus on your talents, not a job description
We love labelling everything including people according to their jobs. She is a marketeer. An HR Manager. An executive. But rather than thinking in those terms it is more helpful to think in terms of talents and strengths. This is helpful in a fast-changing work environment where new jobs are being created and especially if you are thinking of a career switch.
- Challenge yourself regularly –
Be sure you push your personal boundaries regularly. Find a balance between being challenged and being competent and skilled. Find your flow to use Csikszentmihalyi’s insight – make sure you are challenged enough and/or in need of developing new skills and competences. Staying in your comfort zone will lead to boredom. Being too challenged without the necessary competences and skills, leads to anxiety.
- Welcome feedback
We are all learning – nobody is perfect. Ask for feedback and receive it with an open mind. While being in a feedback session, try to understand what is being said, and ask for clarifications – what exactly is being meant, how was it received. If necessary, repeat what you have understood to ensure you got it right. Next step is to assimilate and see what you can do with the feedback, as sometimes it can also not be constructive feedback or not even relevant. Try to identify what you can learn from it and how you can develop your talents further.
I love to hear your thoughts on this. Do you manage to identify your talents and give them more space? Do you have any questions on these tips? Or something to add?
