Develop Your Skills

 The idea of developing your skills, by leaving your comfort zone, is essential to living an Intentional Life. Some people may misunderstand and think avoiding your weaknesses means not learning anything new, but nothing could be further from the truth. Even among your strengths there is much to learn.

Here are 4 essential practices to developing your skills:

• Identify Your Strengths – Know which strengths you want to develop. Some things you may be a natural talent in that have nothing to do with what you want to accomplish in life. Perhaps you’re really great at crafts or cooking but it has nothing to do with your career or what will lead you to success. It’s great to focus on that in your leisure time but instead focus on the important strengths that will help you in your career. 

• Think Baby Steps – Then, take small steps each day to become even better. For example, let’s say you’re great at public speaking. You love public speaking. You know it can be a real asset to your chosen profession. Join a speaker’s group, read about speaking, practice speaking even if you need to go out and do it for free. The more you do it, the better you will become. Push yourself out of your comfort zone and plan an event of your own that you can showcase your speaking talents at.

• Act Like A Manager – Successful CEOs know how to identify the strengths of their core players and use them for their best advantage. Much like you can’t change how the pieces of a chess game move, managers believe in using each person to their best ability. You should think that way, too, when it comes to your own strengths. No sense in trying to be well-rounded when playing to your strengths will get you to the success and happiness you desire.

• Define Your Expectations – Once you’ve chosen a couple of talents and skills to develop, decide what you expect the end result to be of your efforts. Do you plan to start a speaking business or do you plan to use your speaking skills to get a promotion at work? What are the end results of perfecting your skill set? As Stephen Covey taught, start with the end in mind.

 Working toward your goals little by little, day by day, can make a huge impact on your life. You don’t have to make a huge change right this moment, just make a small one each day. That’s what my clients do...we practice Kaizen, making small and consistent steps towards progressing towards our goals. One client, Jean, has been a great success story for losing weight by practicing the ACTION STEPS that allow her to make her health a priority. One of the biggest strategies I teach may also help you to map out the changes you want to make by using a monthly calendar starting with the end date and working your way backward toward today for each skill you want to develop. Again, we start with the end in mind. This is exactly what I do in my personal and professional life; I actually focus on the entire year. Then I focus on only one or two skills at a time and if you follow this strategy, you’ll also improve your expertise exponentially.

Until next time...

Lisa

P.S. You can learn more strategies in any of my coaching programs...learn more at www.lisamcgrath.me