This year I’ve been focused on improving my business, and myself, to find out what exactly it is I want to do before going full-time freelance. I’ve been doing a lot of reading, and watching a lot of webinars and talks all about finding your why and finding your niche.

I’m a little sceptical about niching but I’ll go into that a bit more in another post, for now, I wanted to take you along on some things I’ve been discovering along the way of my ‘finding my why’ journey. Today I’m sharing what the internet and more knowledgeable people call your Five Strengths or Clifton Strengths. The number varies from person to person but the programme I’ve worked with focuses on five.

Knowing what you’re good at gives you more confidence and the ability to be more engaged with your work. There’s no use stressing over things you’re not good at, hire people to do that if it’s necessary, and instead use your time to focus on what you’re good at, what you enjoy, which will give you much more satisfaction about your work. Strengths are strengths because the brain is following well-established patterns and it feels a lot more natural than doing something that you’re not that great at. Something you’ve practised every day, knowingly or unknowingly, feels more natural to do. Understanding your strengths allows you to organise your life to get the most out of it, it helps with decision making and building great teams.

So here are my five!

Time Keeper

All about setting timelines and deadlines. This was one I knew would probably come up, I love to plan! As you can probably tell from all my Bullet Journal posts. Time Keeper’s don’t necessarily need to be in control of everything and everyone but it helps to have order. I bloody love a good routine and I’m actually often a bit miffed if my morning routine gets thrown off. It also means I’m not a big fan of surprises, however, I’m okay with change as long as I’ve had enough time to plan for it.

Empathiser

All about being empathetic to others’ emotions. This was another one I thought would come up, however, I didn’t think it would be this high at second on the list. I’ve definitely always been known as the nice person, or the kind person, the person who doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings and notices when others’ emotions change (even when they’re not that obvious). Sometimes it’s not a strength as it also leads to not being able to say no to people, and promising to get things done that others won’t.

Deliverer

This was a surprise, but actually reading what I literally just wrote in the paragraph before about promising things and trying to make those things happen as much as possible, it makes sense. Deliverers are all about following through on promises, about getting the tasks at hand-delivered on time and up to standard. I was surprised at this coming up as usually I’m much more of a planner at the beginning of a project rather than tying up all the loose ends, but the more I read about what a Deliverer is, the more I understand.

Optimist

I have mixed opinions on whether I’m an optimist or not. I am known to be happy and positive but I’m also anxious and worry a lot which doesn’t really lean on the side of optimistic. I do like to try and motivate people in their work and I’m always a big giver of praise, but I’m very easily swayed into pessimistic thinking. I think I aim to be optimistic which is why it’s one of my strengths because I try to be positive and motivating as much as possible.

Coach

All about helping others to develop their potential, which is exactly what my plan is with my blog and the newsletter. I want to help others achieve their goals by sharing whatever it is I know that may help them. Yes sometimes I feel like I don’t really know anything more than anyone else but there are always people a few steps behind you so I like to think about that and teach what I would’ve liked to have known a year or so ago. I’m not the best public speaker but I’ve always wanted to teach so I wasn’t surprised this popped up. I do really love helping people to learn and improve themselves. Maybe I need to try and expand into actual tutorials and coaching?

What do you think? Is it a pile of baloney or something we can actually channel into improving ourselves? Have you ever done one of these tests, whether the official ones or a free one like I did, let me know how you got on!

- Sophie

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What are my five strengths?