Leveraging Your Strengths for Greater Prosperity...
Three Essential Considerations
"...one can only perform with one's strengths.
-Peter Drucker, Renowned Management Consultant
The Essential Drucker, HarperCollins e-books, 2001
Your strengths are the key in designing a productive and satisfying virtual internship. They provide the foundation of a successful interning experience; a valuable experience that opens doors to a number career opportunities important to you. Furthermore, they provide you experiences to grow and maintain a rewarding, worthwhile career.
To that end, this post considers three essential questions to leverage your strengths for greater prosperity in your career pursuits.
Question One: What are Your Strengths?
Identifying your strengths is the first consideration toward unleashing their leveraging power.
Likening your strengths to tools in a toolbox and knowing what "strengths tools" you have at your disposal gives you a good idea of whether or not you have the tools needed to successfully complete a given task. Granted each task/project is different and requires agility and confidence in your ability to deliver on desired results, but knowing that you have accomplished similar tasks in the past with your "strengths tools" provides you with assurance that you are competent to deliver on the challenging tasks posed by new projects. Subsequently, with each task/project you complete your competence and confidence in applying your strengths increases.
If you haven't already identified your strengths taking this free strengths assessment is a good place to start http://freestrengthstest.workuno.com/free-strengths-test.html. It will identify your areas of strength. After you have taken the assessment you can access the results immediately. The results page also includes videos to view that explain and help you understand your results.
The late Peter Drucker observed, "More and more people in the workforce--and most knowledge workers--will have to manage themselves. They will have to place themselves where the can make the greatest contribution;..." (The Essential Drucker).
Knowing your strengths and where and how to apply them effectively, sets you apart from most people and gives you a definite advantage.
How Can You Consistently Apply Them?
Once you have inventoried your strengths, begin the ongoing process of how to leverage them to produce your desired outcomes. Whether designing your internship or career, look for ways to use your strengths that allow you to make your best contribution to the task/project at hand. Although each situation will be different, the more you work with your strengths, the more effective you will become in contributing your best efforts to the tasks/projects you work on.
The real catalyst to making your best contribution is working on projects that are personally and professionally important to you. Your commitment to these worthwhile projects energizes and leverages your strengths with greater power. Leverage that enables you to develop and access greater capacity to contribute in meaningful ways to purposes that inspire you while accomplishing desired project outcomes.
By consistently applying your strengths in this manner you leverage their power and your ability to create greater prosperity for yourself and everyone who benefits from the projects you choose to work on.
How Do You Optimize Your Strengths?
This third consideration is a natural consequence of the second. Through consistent application of your strengths, you go through a number of iterations that fine tune them. These iterations, if closely examined, enable you to identify ways to leverage your strengths in a more creative and innovative manner. By reframing projects in terms of your strengths, you multiply your opportunities to make valuable contributions; contributions that otherwise you wouldn't have even considered.
You automatically identify ways to apply your strengths in ways that create compelling value in all you do. You habitually give your best efforts to any task/project you undertake.
Final Thoughts...
The above three considerations lay the foundation for an ongoing process of leveraging your strengths and making your best contribution. By doing so, you become highly effective in creating greater prosperity for purposes and projects you are passionate about. You become a key contributor to the desired outcomes of any team you work with.
Questions To Contemplate...
How has this post influenced your perspective on the value of leveraging your strengths?
In what situations would the above process help you contribute more effectively to projects that are important to you?
How would it help you create, innovate, and produce greater prosperity in your work? In your personal life?
What Do You Think?
As always your constructive comments are welcomed and appreciated.
Related Reading
5 Ways to Discover and Develop Your Unique Strengths
Forget Your Weaknesses. Develop Your Strengths.
http://cros.land/2010/01/develop-your-strengths/******
Virtual Internship Design is sponsored by Partnering Technologies, a Learning & Development Company focused on your prosperity (Website: partneringtechnologies.blogspot.com). It's founder, Jim Sanderson, can be reached at the following email address: madison85937@yahoo.com.
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