Developing Strengths and Talents

Approaches to Developing Your Strengths and Talents

In your quest for personal development, you'll spend some time thinking about the things that you do well, as well as certain things that you could do better. These are your strengths and talents. Over the course of your life, you'll develop new strengths and talents, and the way you identify yourself may change as a result.

It is important to objectively, and with an unbiased mind, evaluate your true strengths and talents. In addition, it is important to evaluate your weaknesses as well. By truly understanding your strengths and talents, while at the same time, identifying your weaknesses, you will be better able to develop an approach that will yield a more well-rounded set of skills and talents.

What are Strengths and Talents?

Quite simply, strengths and talents are the things you're good at. This can include everything from parenting and mediating conflicts to surfing and playing the cello. In large part, our strengths and talents serve to form our personal identities. By developing your ability to program computers, for example, you'll one day be able to identify yourself as a computer programmer.

Why Develop Your Strengths and Talents?

The main reason for developing strengths and talents is that doing so will grant you access to new activities and events that were previously out of your reach. Since life can be defined as the sum total of the experiences we pack into our stay on this Earth, why not make these experiences as diverse and enriching as possible? Why settle for just a few experiences when, by your own choosing, you can have access to many more?

Here are a few other specific reasons why it pays to develop strengths and talents:

• When you're good at something, it becomes significantly more enjoyable.
• Practical strengths, such as automobile repair or personal finance, will save you incredible amounts of money and time over the course of your life.
• Other talents, such as playing a musical instrument or a sport, will add diversity and meaning to your life.
• You'll have access to far more career opportunities, particularly the ones you want to pursue most.
• You'll be less reliant on others and more reliant on yourself, the only person that you'll always have complete control over.
• When you become stressed, you can reach for one of your talents to calm your mind and soothe your worries.

How to Develop Your Strengths and Talents

Although developing strengths and talents can be very challenging and even frustrating, the rewards associated with achieving mastery in any discipline will be more than worth the effort. However, it's important not to overwhelm yourself by focusing on too many strengths at once, or obsessing over a single discipline to the point where it becomes unenjoyable. Try these simple steps to start developing your strengths and talents:

1. Consider your current strengths and talents.Take the things you currently enjoy and excel at and amplify these aspects of your life. Do you enjoy tennis? If so, your enjoyment will only increase as your mastery of the sport increases - not only because you'll win more often, but because you'll receive more satisfaction from every moment of the activity.
2. Choose a few areas you'd like to develop.As your journey toward self-improvement continues, you may be tempted to develop more strengths and talents than you can possibly manage at the same time. Instead, choose just a few areas that you feel are deserving of your immediate attention, and that will provide a more immediate payoff. Remember, you'll have plenty of time to develop other strengths later.
3. Ask for help.It's pointless to stick to your own devices while developing your strengths and talents. If you're improving your soccer skills, seek the help of a trainer. If you're learning calculus, work with a math tutor. If you're learning an instrument, find others at a similar level of capability and learn and play together.
4. Maintain your strengths.Many of the skills you develop will deteriorate over time if you don't practice them regularly. Make a point of keeping your most valued strengths strong.

Strengths and talents are crucially important because they allow you to interact with your environment more meaningfully and enjoyably. By building your strengths and talents, you make yourself more employable in your professional life and more useful and diverse in your personal life.

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