First, we discover our strengths, next we become aware of how they work and then we get to develop them and take them to the next level. Development is what we are focusing on today.
When Gallup the creators of the Strength finders talk about the development process they use Name It, Claim It and Aim It
Name It – Discovery
Claim It – Awareness
Aim It – Development
Aim It or Development, now you get the choice of how and when you use you Strength.
Step One
Find something to aim your strength at. You can do this with most challenges or areas of passion that you have that you believe one of your strengths lines up with.
When I am coaching people one tool I use is to have people pick three passions and three challenges, write them down and include one sentence describing each of them.
This is an example of a passion and a challenge of mine. They could be the same as seen in my example or the passions and challenges can be completely different.
Passion: Being a Dad – Being part of my kids growing into becoming the best version of themselves is one of the great joys in my life.
Challenge: Being a Dad – I find it hard to be consistently present and engaged with my kids especially if they are talking about something negative. Valuing and empowering them where they are different to me is also a challenge.
Step Two
Choose a strength that you believe you can you use to further develop your personal capacity in this challenge or passion.
Include your awareness of how that strength works for you constructively and destructively.
So, for me I chose Positivity to aim at my parenting challenge.
Constructively: I find the fun, enthusiastic, celebrator, generous
Destructively: Naïve, overly optimistic, gloss over negativity
Step Three
Apply a development tool
Development Tool – Dialling Up\Dialling Down
With this tool you imagine your strength as a flame on a gas grill. When you dial up the knob on the gas grill the flame gets bigger. When you dial down the knob the flame gets smaller.
You have the same opportunity with your strengths. Once you are aware how you use them, you can then choose if and to what degree you use your strength.
So for me I chose Positivity to aim at my parenting challenge.
Step Four
Combine the first three steps
I have some challenges being a Dad. I find it hard to be consistently present and engaged with my kids especially if they are talking about something negative. Valuing and empowering them where they are different to me is also a challenge.
I am going to choose my Positivity Strength to Aim at this challenge
I will Dial Up my Positivity and become my kids greatest Celebrator of who they are and Enthusiast of what they are doing.
I will Dial Up my Positivity and find the fun in my differences with the kids.
I will Dial Down my Positivity and be present and engaged by not glossing over negativity even when they have hard or negative things to talk about.