What makes you feel strong?

What are your strengths? You've been asked this question thousands of times throughout your lifetime. Whether in interviews or casual conversations with friends.

What is a strength anyway? Most people define a strength as something they're good at. What's a weakness? Common wisdom says it's something you suck at.

Don Clifton and Marcus Buckingham challenged us to think differently.

A strength is an activity that makes you feel strong.

A strength is only sometimes an activity you're good at. Instead, it's an activity that makes you feel good.

Before the activity, you look forward to it. During the activity, you feel energized, focused, and engaged. After, you feel refreshed and rejuvenated.

I suck at golf. I'm new to the sport, but it's a strength. I look forward to the activity, feel energized during, and refreshed afterward.

This activity makes me feel good even though I'm not a pro.

Weaknesses are activities that make you feel weak.

You dread them and likely procrastinate doing them. During the act, time moves slowly. You may have trouble focusing. After, you feel drained or exhausted.

Anything finance-related for my business is a weakness. I'm not fond of taxes, accounting, payroll, or managing budgets. It's an absolute drain for me. So, I delegate and avoid as many of these tasks as possible to focus more on my strengths.

What activities during your workday make you feel strong or weak?

Not sure? Keep a log of all the activities you do each day throughout the week. Write down everything you do for 3-5 days.

After each day, go back and review. Label each task you performed as either a strength or a weakness. Remember how you felt before, during, and after each activity. Ask yourself:

• Did you look forward to it?
• Were you focused and energized?
• Did you dread it?
• Did it exhaust you?

Once you have a clear picture of how you spend your day, where can you make improvements? Does your day currently include enough of your strengthening activities?

If not, what can you do to incorporate more of them? How can you change your work or restructure your day to be more energizing vs. draining?

What systems can you put in place to delegate or do less of the weakening activities?

I get it—some weakening activities you must do. In those cases, stack them between strengthening activities. That way, you'll stay energized throughout your day and not drained from tasks you don't enjoy.

These concepts were a game changer for me. I hope you find them as helpful as I did.