Are you well-rounded or pointedly glorious?
We’ve got FOUR reasons to focus on what you’re already good at instead of trying to fix your flaws…
The Five Pointed Star is more than a business logo for us at Adapted. Let me explain…
We are ALL stars. Let’s agree on that from the beginning. We’re all good at some things (the points of our star reaching out) and not so talented at other things (the inverted points near the centre). When we put our effort into bringing our weaknesses up to scratch, we create a circle. Well-rounded and capable. Circles are some of the most useful things in society, that’s true. If, however, we focus our time and attention on building on our strengths, our personal star expands exponentially.
I don’t know about you but I want to twinkle brightly!
We come from very different perspectives and professions but Melissa and I share one thing in common. We believe every single person brings their own unique combination of talents, experiences and knowledge. Not one star shines the same. It’s the individualisation we both have high in our top 5. It’s also proven fact.
Nearly 34 million CliftonStrengths profiles have been completed across the world by people curious to understand themselves a little better. Intriguingly but perhaps unsurprisingly, the data shows that the likelihood of anyone having the same top 5 strengths in the exact same order as someone else is as low as 1 in 33 million!!!
We know many reasons why investing in your talents to build them into strengths is the best thing you can do on your path to achieving your dreams and goals of feeling, leading and simply being better. Here are our top 4.
Growth
We want a return on investment – when you apply your natural talents to achieving the work you need to do it will be easy, fast and likely be successful. Research shows that investing into natural talents will bring results that far outweigh the results of working on your lesser strengths and weaknesses.
A research project in the 1950s examining speed reading among high school sophomores found that practice boosted students’ words-per-minute reading rate, but those who started out fast (300 words per minute at the beginning of the study) made more gains (2,900 words per minute at the end of the study) than everybody else did. All of the students’ speed improved, but practice helped the talented improve the most.
Joy
Flexing natural talents feels good. In fact, it feels incredible. Using your strengths tends to increase your energy instead of allowing it to wane. Using lesser talents sometimes feels like hiking through knee deep mud, every step forward costs more energy than it creates. That might be just me…
Achievement
The Japanese concept of Ikigai captures this placing purpose at the centre of all effort. When are able to express our natural talents in pursuit of a purpose (or a mission) that aligns with our values we can find Flow.
We are BIG fans of Flow.
One of Positive Psychology’s most desirable and achievable states, Flow was described by Mikaely Csikszentmihalyi in 2005. Flow describes the sensation of being completely engrossed in something.. Time passes and the work feels effortless. It happens most when the task at hand is challenging enough to push the limits of your skills while engaging your personal strengths.
Better
Faster. Easier.
There’s a natural limit to how far you can build a weakness. At best it can become a competency. But the never-ending pleasure of building your strengths will help you feel, lead and be better in all areas of your life. There’s no end to how shiny your star can become. When you play the infinite game and invest in your strengths there’s no limit!
“Your weaknesses will never develop,” he told me, “while your strengths will develop infinitely.”
Does your star need a bit of a polish to let your light shine through? Do you want to use your unique strengths to Feel. Lead. Be. Better? Sign up for our news and find out more about our flagship FLB programs. You can also find us on the socials – connect with us on your favourite platform!
