Need a Boost?
Add the Right SKILLS to Your Strengths
By Motivational Keynote Speaker Jean Gatz
If you identified your strengths after reading last week’s blog, you noticed that you’ve needed more than just your strengths to be successful in work and life. And you’re right! Very few strengths can stand on their own without some great skills to back them up. Strengths are important, but combining them with the right skills will take you to a whole new level. And that brings us to Part Two of the Success Equation: Develop strong skills that support and complement your strengths.
What’s the difference between strengths and skills? Your strengths come easily, but that’s not necessarily true for skills. Every skill you have today was learned and practiced over time. Your skills represent the time and effort you’ve put in to accept new ideas, behaviors and information – and then add them to your skill set.
Some skills were easy to learn because they reinforced your existing strengths. You caught on without much effort. Other skills were fairly difficult to master. They required serious effort. You had to stretch far to learn (or try to learn) those skills. And there are still more skills you’ll need to add if you want to STAND OUT from the crowd in a positive way.
People often ask me: “OK, Jean, what skills should I go after first? There aren’t enough hours in the day to learn everything there is to know about my job, my relationships, my health and my life.”
I couldn’t agree more! You may choose to learn new skills that will make you a better leader, colleague, co-worker, partner, spouse, parent or friend. Even if you choose only ONE of those categories, it will take time. Strong skills are important, but not EVERY skill is important for you to learn right now. So where do you start? You must be very selective. You start by asking yourself this very important question: WHAT RESULTS DO I WANT?
In next week’s blog we’ll look at how to determine what skills you need to add – and when – and how. So stay tuned! And I’d love to know how you’re coming along with identifying your strengths so far. Were there any encouraging surprises when you asked others for their feedback? Email jean@jeangatz.com and let me know!
© 2012 Jean Gatz CSP www.jeangatz.com
