Embrace Your Strengths: Discover & Own Your Unique Abilities EP#113

Episode Summary: In the final installment of the summer rerun series, I am encouraging you to focus on your strengths and stop being your own worst critic. This episode is all about recognizing the amazing things you're good at and embracing them instead of fixating on your weaknesses. 

Key Takeaways:

• Focus on Strengths: Stop dwelling on your shortcomings and start acknowledging what you do well. Celebrate your talents, whether it's being a good friend, a supportive partner, or a dedicated employee.
• Know Yourself: Understanding your strengths begins with knowing yourself. Bona suggests taking personality quizzes as a fun and insightful way to identify your natural abilities.
• Stop Comparing: Avoid comparing yourself to others, especially on social media. Embrace who you are and what you have to offer.

Resources Mentioned:

• 16personalities.com: A free personality quiz that can help you identify your strengths and weaknesses.

Quote of the Week: "I do not want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well." - Diane Ackerman

Final Thoughts: Remember, when you have a choice, choose happy. Take this week's challenge to heart and celebrate the incredible person you are. Have a good one, and go get your happy on!

Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review The Happier You Podcast. For more happiness tips and challenges, visit our website at TheHappierYou.net

Transcript

 Hey, happy people. Welcome back. Today is my final installment of your summer rerun series. And this one is all about acknowledging your strengths. I love the reminder to focus on what we're good at instead of always beating ourselves up and picking ourselves apart.  This week I want to talk about focusing on your strengths.

Are you constantly noticing what you aren't good at? What you forgot to do or what you did poorly? When was the last time you noticed when you did something right? When you acknowledged you were a good friend, a supportive wife, an amazing employee, or just even congratulated yourself on what you did instead of beating yourself up for what you did wrong?

We all have things that we need to work on, but if you focus on your strengths and build out from there, you're honoring the amazing, beautiful person that you are first. And everything else from there is a bonus.  I don't know if you remember, uh, way back when, when I started this journey, I explained that it all happened at a conference, when the speaker said to the audience, What is the dream in your heart?

And I didn't have an answer for that. I was stuck. And it took me a while to realize that I needed to learn to love myself, quirks and all. And I believe the journey started for me by learning to like who I was, and a good start with that is acknowledging who I am. What you're really good at. What I'm really good at.

Do you know what you're really good at?  I think this starts with knowing yourself and knowing your strengths. There's a ton of free personality quizzes out there. But a few months ago, our son came home from school and he'd done one in one of his classes. It was through a website called 16personalities.

com and that's one six personalities dot com. I'll put a link to it in the show notes, but it might be fun to try for yourself. I was really impressed with it and actually quite enjoyed it because when I read my strengths on paper,  I actually acknowledged them. I thought, yeah, that's true. I am good at that.

And oh yeah, I'm good at that too. And it really just brought to light some of my strengths that maybe we don't always pinpoint or shine a light on.  Now for you negative Nellies out there, don't worry, it points out your weaknesses too, and what you should focus on. But what I thought was really neat is seeing on paper what makes me amazing.

Amazing as a wife, amazing as a mom, amazing as a friend, and really, I found it fascinating how much of the work that I do, how it really fits in with my personality. And even why doing this podcast 100 percent completely fits my personality. So, focusing on your strengths, I'm going to ask you to stop comparing yourself to others.

Stop comparing yourself to friends on social media. Stop comparing yourself to pretend friends on social media. And by all means, please, stop comparing yourself to perfect Barbie mom at school pickup. Honor who you are and what you have to offer the world. And stop trying to fit yourself into a box. box that somebody else has constructed for you, or maybe you've been trying to fit in that box for so long that it's now a box of your own construction. 

Figure out who you are, what you value, what strengths you have to offer the world, and then celebrate those things, and share them with the world, and figure out a way to capitalize on your strengths instead of focusing on your weaknesses.  Stop undervaluing your strengths because you aren't perfect.

Newsflash, even perfect Barbie mom has weaknesses. Insecurities, but they're not your problem.  As I was thinking about the subject of this podcast, I remembered back to a very young age when I had joined the military to become a pilot, and after my first year of, of school and training with the military, I went to get tested to be a pilot, and uh, They put you in this pretend plane, and they give you different controls, and they say, okay, do this with your feet, do this with your hands, and, you know, this is what's gonna happen.

They explain it all to you, and they, you know, they give you your feet by themselves, and then they give you your hands by themselves, and then they say, okay, you've got it all, and you're supposed to keep this plane level. I  epically failed at that. And, when I say epically failed, I mean, epically failed.

epically failed. It was a very, very humbling experience. There was no part of me that thought, oh yeah, yeah, I got this.  And I had a friend who was a pilot, passed the pilot training, actually had been a pilot in cadets previously.  And he said to me, don't worry, one year of video games, flight training, I, you'll get this, no problem.

But the interesting thing was, is even at a young age, I, as much as I thought I joined the military to become a pilot, my experience in that plane  made me realize those are not my strengths.  And not at all.  And so even at a young age, I accepted that those aren't my strengths, so why would I try and fit into that box?

Because that's not who I am, and it would just be a struggle for the whole time.  This was confirmed a few years later when in the Navy I was a ship borne air controller, and it was basically like flight traffic control, but on a ship for the helicopters and airplanes that worked with the ship. And so as part of my training, I was supposed to go up with the air crew and I got to go up in the helicopter and they let me sit in the front seat.

And at one point he says, all right, you've got it. You know, here's what you're gonna do. Keep it at this altitude. And I. Kid you not, not less than a few minutes and somehow, unbeknownst to me, you know, the airplane was about 800 feet lower than it was supposed to be when he had handed over the controls to me.

And I just, you know, I just said, yeah, nope, this is, that third dimension, it's just not my thing. I, it's not my strength flying, uh, any type of aircraft.  So, at a young age, I knew what wasn't my strengths, and I know that's easy for many of us to point out our weaknesses. But I think, sometimes, trying something new, and instead of beating yourself up over it, you just kind of go, Okay, that's not for me.

What did I learn from that? What are my strengths? And then kind of head in that direction.  When you work in something that you, uh, that plays to your strengths, it's way more fulfilling, and way more fun to do.  I realized that instead of doing things because I can, I need to focus more on what I'm good at and stop fighting something that I'm not. 

I want you to take some time to think about what you're really good at and start and build from there. Honor the talents and energies that you've been given. 16 personalities for me was a fun place to start and you might want to try it. It's free.  If you decide to take it, read it through with a grain of salt, sit with it for a while and ask yourself, Does this ring true to my strengths?

Don't get defensive or judge. Just take it as information and you can decide to do with it what you want. Maybe it'll help you learn a little bit more about yourself and maybe it won't. If nothing else, it's a fun exercise.  I was just reading through it again last night and  it's, it's free. But obviously once you do it, they are going to try and sell you their premium profiles.

And I loved, in fact, I highlighted what at the end of the explanation of my personality and how it interacts with, you know, in different roles and stuff like that. It says, and this is a quote from my profile, Our premium profiles provide a roadmap towards a happier, more successful life. Successful and more versatile you.

So they promised me a roadmap to a happier me, which I thought was great,  . So I'm gonna leave you with a quote this week. I do not want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well. And that's Diane Ackerman.  The challenge I'm giving you today is simple.

But might not be as easy as you'd like. I just want you to take a couple of minutes and write down five things that you're good at. Five, it's not a lot. And there are more than five things that you're good at. But today, I just want you to focus on five, acknowledge them, sit with them,  Alright, happy people.

Remember, when you have a choice, choose happy. Have a good one, and go get your happy on.