4 Tips for Discovering your Strength

By Emily Nahem | Intern | Office of Career & Life Design  

We all strive for a career that we are passionate about AND good at! Becoming aware of and leveraging your strengths can be a good start to finding work that accomplishes that.

Here’s how you can gain insight into your strengths:

1. Think about activities or skills that come naturally for you. Does working with numbers just make sense? Are you a good listener in your personal and professional life? Chances are, there are quite a few skills that you may feel at ease doing that can translate to your career.

2. What are you intuitively drawn to doing? The concept of “flow” from the book Designing Your Life describes a state in which you are calm and comfortable while doing a particular activity. You may have the right amount of skill or the passion to develop it further – but the key is that you find it enjoyable.

3. Think about peak experiences where you felt proud and accomplished. What about those experiences made you proud? Did you engage in teamwork to solve a problem? Did you memorize hundreds of words to win a spelling bee? Did you increase yearly sales at your company? Understanding what skills were utilized to achieve this can help you understand your strengths.

4. Tap into the people that know you and your experiences to bring insight to your strengths. Perhaps a professor or a manager who you worked on a project with has insights into what you did well. Mentors, coaches, and friends who know you can help you identify your talents and abilities by reflecting them back to you.

Consider writing out your stories and experiences to gain a better sense of your strengths and accomplishments. Once you have written or talked about it, it can become easier to articulate this with others. This will also bring an insight and awareness to your career to help find something you are passionate about and excellent at!

Interested in taking the Gallup’s StrengthFinder? Make an appointment with a career consultant to start that process today!