Ever hear of the theory of the law of attraction? It says what a person chooses to focus on will continue to improve in life. A person's focus infiltrates every area of their life, such as an online business. Strengths and weaknesses have a lot to do with the ebb and flow of life. Instead of dwelling on weaknesses, our free webinar training reminds entrepreneurs to foster the growth of their strengths. Sounds pretty simple, right? It’s not, but there are ways to make it happen. We discuss a few below:
For starters, Psychology Today argues that if you focus on your strengths, you will become a more confident person with healthy self-esteem. As you continue to focus on your strengths, you will also grow in other ways, such as finding ways to improve your business and not give up.
Are more confident – studies have found that both strengths knowledge and strengths-use are significantly associated with self-efficacy, self-esteem, self-acceptance, and self-confidence.
Experience faster growth and development – studies have found that positive self-monitoring and strengths building are particularly suited to circumstances when you’re learning something new, something difficult, or something perceived as difficult.
Lifehack reminds us how essential it is to focus on the here and now, and not the past. Concentrating on your strengths doesn’t mean being happy 24/7, but it definitely means doing what makes you glad to be satisfied with life. Success and ongoing happiness will follow.
Vishen Lakhiani, CEO of MindValley, says that “happiness is the new productivity”. Being in a state of flow or extreme creativity will magnify the impact of everything you do. You must have goals, but your happiness must not be tied to these goals. You must be happy in the now. You will never reach your highest success if you are not happy what you are doing. Do what makes you happy and your will create a state of flow which will bring to you everlasting success.
So if you don’t already know, spend some time figuring out what your strengths are, what activity induces flow for you? When you know what activity it is, focus on it and do it to the best of your ability. Make sure you “only do what only you can do”, focus on your 20%, and let others do the 80% of the work that you don’t need to do. By doing this not only will you be more efficient, creative, and productive — you will be happier and more successful.
The 80/20 rule is pretty cool, and Million Dollar Life Lessons recognizes that this rule has the potential to improve your life. Focus on what you’re doing because the results weigh heavily upon your efforts in all areas of life.
The 80/20 Rule was created by an Italian economist named Vilfredo Pareto. He realized that in most aspects of life, 20 percent of what we do makes up 80 percent of the results.
Of course, it applies to strengths, but how? By using your strengths for that 20% of work, you’ll get 80% closer to achieving your goal. Not only that, you’ll enjoy doing the work way more and everything will happen more quickly and easily, too.
Trying to do work that involves our weaknesses is like walking into the wind during a horrible storm. It’s slow-going, and we’ll be soaked and chilled to the bone by the time we reach our destination (if we even get there).
But doing work that uses our strengths? That’s a breeze! It’s like going for a walk on a beautiful spring day where the sun’s shining, and there’s even some wind at our backs gently pushing us forward.
Now I can’t tell you the specifics of what to focus on for your 20 percent, but I can say that bringing your strengths to that effort makes it way more likely to be successful!
Use your strengths to your advantage, because as Due reminds us, relying on your strengths makes the most sense. If you feel confident in what you’re doing, you’ll be more likely to help a business grow.
When I was introduced to the StrengthsFinder concept, I was intrigued. You don’t necessarily have to take the test (it costs money), though, to see that it makes a certain kind of sense to focus on your strengths, especially for business owners.
Rather than trying to be better at things you aren’t particularly good at, it makes more sense to focus on the things you excel at and leverage those into bigger results.
It’s kind of like using the Pareto principle for your own business efforts. You know that 20% of your effort is the basis for 80% of the results you get from your business. As a result, it makes sense to focus on the things you do well — the things that are most likely to give you those results.
By focusing more on what you’re good at, instead of wasting time trying to do things you’re bad at (and having the poor results hold you back), consider building off your strengths. You’ll see a better outcome in the long run.
If you find you’re dwelling on the negative, Medium says to shift your focus. In other words, stop focusing on what you can’t change. Focus on what you can do to conquer your fears and pave the way to greatness.
We often perform a root-cause analysis (RCA) about our failures. Oh, I failed because of that person, reason, situation, mistake and so on.. People aren’t satisfied till here. They go on introspecting until they find a big, valid excuse under which they can hide their guilt of failure. The result is nothing, but wastage of a lot of quality time, energy, poor relations at work or at personal level and a disappointed person.
Now, think the other way round. We can’t deny the fact that we have tasted success in more or less forms in our life. What if we spent a little time in doing a RCA of what led us to success? This shift in your focus from weaknesses to strengths can instill confidence and positivity in you. In fact, it would keep you inspired throughout.
Knowing about the reasons, facts, possibilities and things that made you successful is what would differentiate your from others. Successful entrepreneurs perform an RCA after every little success, which helps them stay consistent and achieve whatever they want.
Recall that project when you were successfully able to deliver it. Jot down the approach you followed; planning, ideating or everything you did to make it successful. Once you write everything down, you can convert them into more meaningful results, which can later be shared with your team as well.
Focusing on strengths creates more success, as Asian Speakers states below. Do you want your online business to be successful? A significant aspect of that is to stay focused on what you do the best — and the rest will follow.
I found out that the best way motivate staff is to help them be successful at work. If they feel that they are winning at work, they are more likely to do more and stay longer in the company.
This principle of focusing on strengths is also applicable to your work personal life and career. I would first identify what you are really good in and what do people say that you are good at. Sharpen the areas that you are good at and form teams to compensate what you are weak in.
In my case, for example, I realized that I can deliver more value to my clients in the areas of consulting, giving keynotes and training. However, if I focus on spending my time doing administrative work, running operations or even handling finance matters, I am not playing in areas where I can win. I think no one can truly escape the non-core activities of your work, but we can at least ensure that most of our time is taken up by core activities.
If you’re struggling with understanding what your strengths are, try creating a list of your accomplishments. Zapier says that if you put your achievements on paper, you can take the time to look everything over and decide on where your biggest strengths lie.
In The Introvert's Complete Career Guide, Jane Finkle recommends an exercise where you think of your proudest accomplishments to identify your interests, skills, and values. But the exercise is also a way to identify your strengths.
Think back over all of the accomplishments you're proud of. It could be something like getting a promotion, getting a book published, or even teaching yourself how to change the alternator in your car. Think about accomplishments that energized you—they don't necessarily have to be things you'd include on a resume—and try to narrow down your list to only three.
Then, look at those accomplishments and try to determine what each says about you. For example, my favorite accomplishments are:
Getting published in a national poetry anthology when I was in middle school.
Teaching myself how to use Photoshop so I could get a job as a marketing manager.
Getting my master's degree while working full-time and raising a young child.
If I look at those three things together, creativity comes across as a theme. Love of writing does as well if you consider that I was studying English in graduate school. It's also clear that I like learning and that I'm dedicated to doing the work that's required to get what I want.
Any of the insights you gather by looking at your proudest accomplishments side-by-side could be your strengths, particularly if those strengths match up with what others told you your strengths were or the results of one of the tests recommended above.
Join us during our next free webinar training where we’ll continue to discuss how business owners can look past their weaknesses and focus on their strengths. Offering tips on how to use your skillset to create a great business is what we do best!
Sources: Psychology Today, Lifehack, The Million Dollar Life Lessons, Medium, Asian Speakers, Due, Zapier
CHALLENGE Yourself to Profit!
Free Download: Build Your Profit-Generating Online Business With This Free Blueprint
Sign Up, follow the easy steps and You'll get the tactics, strategies & techniques needed to create your online profit stream. It's free!
