What is your take on developing STRENGTHS? 

Do you think that you should double down on your strengths? Or work on your WEAKNESSES?

Everyone you talk to will have their own opinion and they’ll give you their good reasons for doing one thing or the other.

For me, personally, I believe that you should focus on developing your strengths.

After all, your strengths and different way of seeing and doing things, is what makes you UNIQUE and special. 

But the problem is that sometimes you DON’T even KNOW what your strengths are.

When I talk about strengths, a lot of people think about innate abilities, talents that you are born with. 

But that’s not what I´m talking about here.

The strengths that I´m referring to, are the things and activities that bring you ENERGY.

All those things that when you do them, make you feel like there is NO TIME, like you are in the FLOW, like you can do them for hours and hours and you feel GOOD doing them.

The strengths I´m talking about can be LEARNED, worked on, developed and GROWN.

If… if YOU DECIDE to take the time to do it.

The thing is that sometimes you don’t know that you have a special ability or enjoy doing something because you never tried it.

Sometimes you LIMIT yourself because you don’t try NEW THINGS. 

Sometimes you cannot see your own POTENTIAL.

Sometimes is SOMEONE ELSE that sees something in you and they spark your curiosity and then you start developing a new strength, that you never thought of.

If you close yourself to experimenting new things, you wouldn’t know all that you can do. 

For me, I never thought that I would enjoy writing a blog and a newsletter weekly!

When I first thought about writing them, I was thinking about doing them every two weeks, because I couldn’t imagine that I’d like to write them.

I thought that I would run out of things to write about. I thought that I would dread the writing time.

But then, I decided to push myself and commit to writing weekly. 

And when I started doing that, I started noticing that I like the energy I get when I sit down to write. 

I noticed that I enjoy sending the newsletters and posting the blogs. 

I realized that I love writing!

But, I wouldn’t have found about it, if I didn’t give myself a chance to EXPERIMENT with it.

A similar thing happened when I thought about public speaking. 

As an introvert, I didn’t think that going on a stage and talk to an audience was something that I’d enjoy.

I thought I’d be freaked out and nervous and not able to deliver a coherent presentation. 

But, I decided to joint Toastmasters in order to see if I could get comfortable with public speaking.

And, what I found out was that I actually love it! 

Again, I realized that I get my energy levels up whenever I think about public speaking and I love to do motivational talks.

I realized that it brings me energy and even though I feel nervous whenever I´m about to give a talk, the positive energy is greater than the nervousness and I end up enjoying every second of it.

But, as I said, I had to give myself permission to TRY something new and see how it felt for me. 

Even though it was something that an introvert wouldn’t think about. 

Even though it didn’t make much sense to start with… 

What do I want you to get out of this?

I want you to BE CURIOUS.

I want you to BE OPEN.

I want you to allow yourself to try new things that might be out of your comfort zone. 

I want you to EXPLORE your talents and to be open to the possibility that there are a lot of new skills that you haven’t tried yet that might bring you lots of energy into your life. 

If you set yourself on an exploration JOURNEY and let yourself try NEW THINGS, you’ll bring yourself into new areas that’ll take your life to another level. 

You´ll discover that you can do much MORE than you thought.

You´ll discover that you are just starting to find out the enormous POTENTIAL that you have.

You´ll set yourself into a different level of EXCELLENCE and you´ll be amazed and what you can ACHIEVE in your life.

So, GIVE YOURSELF A CHANCE, don’t let any tests tell you what you are good at or limit your thinking. 

Explore, be curious.

Try new things.

Allow yourself to try and see for yourself what energizes you.

And let me know below, have you ever discovered something that you are good at that you didn’t think you could do before?

Has anyone ever tell you that you were good at something that you didn’t think about?

Share your thoughts below!

xoxo, 

Sofia