Identify Your Strengths and Talents

Coach: Maret McCoy

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” This is one of my favorite quotes, and it comes from legendary business management guru, Peter Drucker. The work I do helping professional women discover their ultimate career fit is based on this principle.

A solid understanding of your top strengths and talents is essential to creating career success. Knowing what you’re good at allows you to steer your career in the most satisfying and fulfilling direction.

When I embark on a coaching program with a new client, I like to start out by getting a sense of her greatest strengths and talents. When I ask clients to share their top skills, I’m usually met with stunned silence. Most women cannot say what they’re good at! For many women, this is due to a combination of not wanting to brag and simply not knowing (or not owning) their gifts and talents.

Own Your Gifts

Every individual has areas in which she excels. Too often, women overlook or devalue their greatest strengths. Since certain skills come to them naturally, they assume everyone possesses those same gifts. However, a task that feels effortless to you may be a struggle for someone else.

For example, one of my clients is a policy expert for a national issue advocacy organization. Most of her job involves writing policy papers that provide insight and analysis on emerging topics in her field. She is often called upon to write these complex briefs under very tight deadlines. Since this type of strategic thinking and writing comes so completely naturally to her, initially she didn’t recognize it for the highly unique and marketable skill that it is.

I coached her to appreciate this skill and to acknowledge the enormous value she brings to her organization. Very few people can write such high caliber pieces, and even fewer can produce quality, insightful work under tight deadlines and extreme pressure.

A Written Exercise

The following exercise will help you identify your top skills:

Review all of the jobs you have held, including your current position. Go all the way back to your first job -- maybe it was in high school. Take out a separate sheet of paper for each position and write the job title at the top of the page. Then, brainstorm what you liked about each job.

Ask yourself questions such as:

There are no right or wrong answers here. Let your brainstorm flow and do not censor yourself. This document is for your eyes only, so there is no risk of judgment. Work on this exercise for 15 minutes a day over several consecutive days. Give yourself enough time for all ideas and observations to surface. Schedule time in your calendar to complete this exercise in the next seven days. Take out your calendar right now and commit three, 15-minute blocks of time for three consecutive days.

Know Both Your “Hard” and “Soft” Skills

Upon completing your initial brainstorm, the following will help you analyze the results and identify immediate action steps.

Once you have reviewed each of your past positions and identified what you liked about each one, take a break for a few days. Getting some distance from the subject matter before continuing allows you to return to the process with a fresh perspective.

When you are ready, reread each section and look for commonalities among the various positions. As you move through each section, pinpoint your top skills. Ask yourself the following questions:
· What type of work gives me the most satisfaction?
· What are the top skills that have emerged?
· What similar skills and talents can be grouped into categories?

Your next step is to organize the information into two separate lists. These lists should include your top five “hard skills” and top five “soft skills.”

Hard skills are specific job skills such as:

Soft skills are personal qualities and attributes such as:

Both sets are equally important in the working world; hiring managers look for both types of skills when bringing on new team members.

Next Steps

Take what you’ve discovered and create an action plan. Your plan should include those skills you wish to further develop and the specific action steps you will take to accomplish this. For example, you may decide you want to strengthen your proposal writing and networking skills. Therefore, you identify the following action steps: request to be a part of the next proposal development team and read a professional development book about networking know-how.

Once you’ve identified your top strengths and skills, I encourage you to own them! This is not about being a braggart. Rather, this is about sharing your talents with the world in a relaxed and confident manner. Embrace your gifts and let them shine! And let them “work” for you!

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More Information about the Coach:

The author of this Mini Coaching Lesson for WomensMedia is
Maret McCoy, Executive Coach for Women. Maret specializes in helping professional women find their ultimate career fit – a job that offers fulfillment and is a match with their greatest strengths and passions.

Check out additional information on Maret’s Coaching Page.