From Here To Your Life's Work: Step Four - Commit To Using Your Best Talents Daily

Step 4 To Doing Your Life's Work: Commit to Using Your Best Talents

This is the point in the journey where it gets a bit easier for a moment.

Finding your voice, tough.

Finding your tribe can be tougher than finding your voice.

Starting something can be terrifying for some.

Committing to using your best talents daily should be the easiest of all the steps we've reviewed to date.

Why?

Because they are your best talents and I'm pretty sure they are things that you are very good at naturally or enjoy doing tremendously. So the challenge to use them more often should be a welcome one.  Now if you shoot back that you don't even KNOW what your best talents are - still not a problem. Go figure that out.

There are so many resources available to assist you in this area. Personally, I've used Myers-Briggs Personality Test and StrengthFinders 2.0 but there are many resources help you identify your best talents.

Without question, identifying and utilizing your best talents are critical for doing your life's work. One of the key principles I point out in my book, From Here To There: 5 Steps To Doing Your Life's Work Every Day is that your life's work has nothing to do with where you work or who you work for but everything to do with the work itself. And the "work itself" stems from your ability to harness and execute consistently against your best talents.

For me, my best talents (in no order) are the following:

Cast a vision
Ignite people
Inspire people

In order to know that I am fully doing my life's work every day - I must be doing one of the above talents daily. And it is an intentional commitment. My daily to do list is not complete without tasks that include one of my best talents. In fact, I often create a "to don't" list to ensure my focus. Let's dive a bit on my point from earlier in the post - the fact that your best talents are your best talents for a reason.

When you are using your best talents, you most likely doing something that comes naturally to you or something that you enjoy.  When you're doing something enjoyable, do you care about time? Are you watching the clock? Of course not. You just do that thing and can often times be described as "going into your own little world."

I see this every time I get a peek at my Evan playing guitar. We push him to practice and he always balks but when you get the chance to see him making music - it is unbelievable. He just plays and plays. Time is not an issue because Evan is a natural at guitar. He hears the music not only with his ears but with his heart.

That's me at a strategic planning session or a customer service workshop and brainstorm. It is bliss for me to see others igniting on their own words and ideas as I draw them out and put them to paper before their eyes.

Guys, this is the money step.

When you commit to using your best talents daily, you will see the world transform around you to enable you to do it more. Get started right away. Even in the smallest way, figure out how to integrate your best talents into your daily routines.


How will you do that today?

Rantings From The Gal With A Close Relationship To Achievement - Part One

It is not often that I am out of sorts for very long. Normally, I have the ability to unpack what's bothering me, deal with it head on and move on to my next challenge or opportunity.

Today was not that day.

I have been bombarded lately with situations/people/instances where folks seem to just not be able to figure out ways to get to what they want in their lives.

Be it romance, peace, financial stability - you name it and people can't get it.

I am scratching my head as to why.

You see, I have strong and consistent relationship with achievement.

I'm not talking about extraordinary things, I mean everyday  - make a goal, attain it. Make another goal, attain it. Sometimes the goals are big and sometimes the goals are small. Regardless, it's really simple for me. Don't like something in my life, change it. Not happy with the way I look, work on it.

I am stunned at how difficult this seems to be for others right now.

Further, I am perplexed that people act somewhat annoyed when I start to troubleshoot once they share their woes with me. Clearly they did not get the memo from this past week. I'm a Maximizer and I can't help myself. No apologies.

At the urging of my supervisor at work, I took the StrengthFinders 2.0 and found out (well got more validation and perspective on what I already knew)  about my top 5 Strengths. And the one related to this post is Maximizer

The Shared Theme Description for Maximizer is this:

People who are especially talented in the Maximizer theme focus on strengths as a way to stimulate personal and group excellence. They seek to transform something strong into something superb.

Thank goodness I read and absorbed this earlier this week because it explains so much to me about me and how I interact with others. It is just the way I'm wired to be disappointed when I see strong that can be stronger.

I hold myself to a high standard and it's highly unlikely that I'm going to "lighten up" on others - especially those that I see more than what they see in themselves.

I focus on my strengths as a way to achieve those things I want in my life versus looking at the obstacles or roadblocks in the path. I intentionally choose to grab on to the nuggets of hope and pour energy into them versus the boulders of doubt and "what ifs".

So this post is my non-apology to folks who want me to lower my expectations, "lighten up", or what ever other euphemisms you have for give up and settle for what life hands you. Not gonna happen for me or anyone who chooses to associate with me. I live to be the best I can be. Every day of every year. Forgive me for being temporarily frustrated when things are not the way I'd like them to be. While you're criticizing me for being so uptight - I'm already looking for solutions to make sure I don't get disappointed again.

Thanks for reading this rant.  Because there are 5 strengths - there will be more rantings. Stay tuned.

What do you have to say back?