720: (1 of 8) How to Find Your Signature Strengths: The Foundation of Career Fit and Fulfilling Work | What Fits You

[00:00:00] Scott Anthony Barlow: Most people have spent their work years getting very good at things that they'd never voluntarily choose. This leads to promotions. Promotions reward competence. They don't reward fit. So the better you are at something you don't love, the harder it gets to escape it. Because now, it's embedded in your brand, your title, your identity, how people know you. This, of course, is how pigeonholing happens, and in this episode, we're gonna begin separating out what you're great at from what you actually want to spend your time doing.

[00:00:30] Now, this is the distinction that signature strengths are built on, and if you want work that fits you, it's the foundation for everything else to come. I'm Scott Anthony Barlow, and this isn't a normal episode of the podcast. Instead, this is Day One of What Fits You, our eight-day mini-course. Now, we're airing the course as a series right here on the podcast so that you can begin figuring out what creates a phenomenal fit for you and the work that you want to be doing.

[00:00:56] If you haven't already listened to the introduction episode, I would encourage you to go back in your episode feed and start with that. Start with the introduction to What Fits You so that you can have the full context before we dive in. Also, if you want the complete course experience, including the emails and guided exercises, then register for free, happentoyourcareer.com/8day or the links in the description.

[00:01:20] Now, I should probably state up front that I don't believe that you have to put up with work that doesn't fit you, and here at HTYC, we've been fortunate enough to help our clients define success by their own standards and begin to live lives where they have the freedom and autonomy to be unapologetically themselves.

[00:01:36] We find the best place to start is with a question, and that is, well, "What are your strengths?" Now, here's what's really interesting. We get to work with really smart, talented people all over the world, you know, often senior professionals or leaders, and these are highly self-aware people. And also, when we start to ask about strengths, a lot of times what we get is, "Well, I'm a strong communicator," or, "I'm good at, you know, breaking down complex things and then being able to, you know, explain that to other people," or, "I'm a strong leader," or, "I'm good with people," or, "I can relate to others."

[00:02:11] And, and that's great, but those are categories, not necessarily strengths. And what's also really interesting is, you know, a long time ago, I used to work in HR leadership, and so I would ask similar questions across many, many hundreds of interviews, and I can tell you that vague answers are the norm, even at the highest levels, no matter what level of self-awareness.

[00:02:34] But here's why this actually matters. If you can't name what you specifically are great at and what genuinely energizes you, it's going to be very difficult to design a career that fits you. You'll keep making smart, logical moves that look right on paper and feel justified at the time, but often are wrong in practice.

[00:02:56] Morgan Dunn described this perfectly. She had an organizational development role, high visibility, worked directly with the CEO of the organization. Textbook match for her IO psych master's degree, and by every external measure, she had landed exactly where she was supposed to be.

[00:03:12] Morgan Dunn: I recognized that the role that I was in was such an amazing opportunity for somebody who had pursued an IO psych master's degree. I was very, very much wrapped up in that identity, and, you know, trying to pursue the expected traditional path that somebody for that degree should go out and get. But at the same time, I realized it was that wide variety that started to drain me.

[00:03:38] Scott Anthony Barlow: Okay, Morgan was getting excellent reviews on her performance from everyone she worked with. This is pretty normal, but what she didn't know was that what she was specifically great at, and more importantly than that, what she actually wanted to keep doing or spend her time doing.

[00:03:55] This could be misinterpreted as a motivation problem, or am I interested in this topic or area or industry problem? But what it actually is, is a misalignment with strengths problem. Now, Martin Seligman is who many people would call the founder of positive psychology, and he also coined the term signature strength.

[00:04:15] His definition included the idea that strengths are the truest essence of who you are. Now, I like parts of this definition, for sure, but what it means is that what makes up you, your experiences, your predispositions, the ways you naturally tend to show up, think, and operate, the way you're wired, you know, that makes some activities easier or more enjoyable for you compared to other people; well, those are your strengths.

[00:04:41] They tend to be underneath the surface as opposed to more visible, and they cause you to be great at some areas versus others. And doing more work using your strengths causes the work to feel less like the negative version of work that so many people have grown to tolerate. But here's what makes this tricky.

[00:04:57] The things that come most naturally to you are often the things that you've stopped noticing or undervalue. You've been doing them so long, you've been behaving in this way so long, automatically, it starts to become invisible. Many people think that they don't count because it feels so easy to you, even when they're genuinely rare.

[00:05:18] Now, there's a portion of people that might be sitting here thinking, "I genuinely don't know what my strengths are." And if that's you, don't worry, that's exactly where some people are at when they start, and that's okay. But even if you feel like you've got a great handle and can articulate your strengths very well, and you're just here because you want to refine your understanding, the answer is almost always found in your history.

[00:05:41] I wanna give you an exercise that helps you uncover more about your strengths through reflection and start to observe some of the patterns. This is a super simple exercise. We'll do it sometimes with our clients, and the reason I like it for this mini course is because it's so easy to accomplish here.

[00:05:56] Okay, I want you to take out a piece of paper or open a Word doc or a Google Doc. This works best when you can write it out and see that visible feedback in front of you, as opposed to just thinking through it.

[00:06:09] Step two, I want you to list every significant role that you've held. And we can apply this to roles outside of work, but for the purpose of this exercise, let's just start with the ones that are work-relevant here. Let's go back as far as it feels relevant, too, including the ones that you loved, the ones you tolerated, the ones you left, all of them.

[00:06:29] In step three, under each role, and hopefully you've left a little bit of space in between each role here, I want you to try to answer two questions. What did I actually enjoy doing in this role? Even if you didn't enjoy, you know, everything else about it. What were the small parts, the large parts, anything that comes up for you in this area? And then a secondary question is, what would I say I was genuinely great at in this particular role? Not just competent, but great.

[00:06:55] Okay, this is where we get into step four. Now, I want you to begin looking across your whole list. What themes keep surfacing? What patterns do you notice? What piece shows up in multiple roles, regardless of what industry or title, or area it is? Now, as you start to break down these lists, that's where often those themes will begin to surface.

[00:07:19] Those patterns are not necessarily your signature strengths, but there are clues to understanding your signature strengths at a deeper level. Be careful, though, because so many people, when they're doing this, they will automatically dismiss something out of their mind and not even acknowledge it or write it down because it seems obvious or it seems like everybody can do this.

[00:07:39] I want you to write it down anyway. Okay, at this point, you can admit this is a pretty simple exercise. We used to call this the past jobs or past roles exercise, but we've leveraged it so much for strengths that now we call it the strengths reflection exercise, and this starts to surface insights that sometimes self-assessment tools can't.

[00:07:57] Now, if you wanna take this a step further, you could pop this into your favorite AI tool and then use it to be able to analyze some of the patterns that you might have missed or you might have not acknowledged as valuable. Be careful with that, though, 'cause often people want to take this input, and they'll want to take it a step further, and then they'll say, "What jobs does this match with?"

[00:08:18] Now, there's a lot of evidence out there in research at this point that strengths don't actually directly connect with jobs. That is a myth. It seems logical, but it's not how it works in reality. So I just wanna save you the trouble there. That'll lead you the wrong direction very, very often, which is part of what makes finding fulfilling work challenging.

[00:08:39] We'll expand more on that later on. As we close out day one of our eight-day course, your action for today is to complete the strengths reflection exercise and then come back. Leave us a comment right here answering the question, "What's one strength or pattern that kept showing up across your roles that you've been undervaluing or taking for granted?"

[00:08:57] No matter what you're watching on, Spotify, YouTube, streaming on your favorite podcast platform, leave your comment and take a moment to read someone else's. You'll be surprised how often you can recognize yourself in another's response. I should also probably point out that these exercises seem very simple, but they're often very difficult in ways that people don't anticipate.

[00:09:16] For example, a lot of the times when we're working with clients, we're helping them go and dig five or six or seven layers deeper, uncovering their strengths, than what they have done on their own. What that means for you is that this exercise is going to, at the very least, give you clues. But please don't beat yourself up if you can't yet see the pattern or how to connect this back to the real world of work just yet.

[00:09:37] If at any point you decide you want more help, though, identifying work that fits you and making it a reality, this is what our team does. You can just drop me an email directly, Scott@happentoyourcareer.com. Put conversation in the subject line, and then our team will reach out to you, and we'll talk through the next best step, ask you questions, and help you build a plan from where you are to work that actually fits.

[00:09:58] Tomorrow, in day two, we're going to take what you've started here, and we're gonna go deeper because signature strengths are only part of the picture. The next piece is understanding what your strengths are actually pointing you towards. Until then, I'm Scott Anthony Barlow. Adios. I'm out.