When is your “strength not a strength” and what to do about it.
We all have our strengths and weaknesses. When we use our strengths in a way that produces results, gives us satisfaction and rewards us emotionally and financially, we feel fulfilled. Our signature strengths enable us do our jobs and fulfill our career aspirations in a proficient and credible way.
But the very strength we have relied upon all these years can also become a career derailer! So when is strength not strength? Well – a common scenario is when we overuse them!
1) Overused strengths – when strengths get so overused that they rob us of our sense of enjoyment, pleasure and ease in using them, we may well be in the territory of overused strengths. If you find yourself feeling tired and disengaged from the work you once loved to do, experiencing exhaustion or feeling close to burn out, do a self check. Could it be that you are overusing your strength(s)?
An extreme example of an overused strength is someone working in the trauma counseling field. For the victim support person or trauma counselor, there is almost daily exposure to some very intense emotions and the need to support clients through some of life’s very challenging and even unfathomable events. Even with good supervision and other strategies in place for support, doing such a job over a long period of time can lead to burnout through overusing one’s strength such as high levels of empathy, deep listening and supporting people through their shock, grief and unexpected loss and tragedy
An alert – If you find yourself using some strength(s) to the max and it’s beginning to lose luster or perhaps, like one manager, you relied too much on your known strength to “swing it” but didn’t – this could be your orange light, indicating a change ahead and needing you to stop. If you could then do a stock take, exploring how else you could balance out the rest of your work/ life that brings in other less developed capabilities to the fore, you could be on to something. In high performing teams, what’s great is that you can draw on the strengths of other team members and vice versa!
2) Underutilized strengths – this is the exciting and engaging bit. We also have strengths that are underutilized and or even unrealized! Perhaps there is something you do extremely well but you have just taken it for granted. As one client put it, “it’s just what I do.” Or it may be something you enjoy doing but haven’t quite been able to integrate it into your work and life. Or perhaps it was an emerging strength which sadly got shut down prematurely.
Whatever category you are in, try and identify what your underutilized strength might be. You could be sitting on a goldmine! Many people in mid-life suddenly change their career direction and pick up on a seemingly new passion and interest. Often we find traces of what has been an undetected underutilized strength. If you are not sure about what this might be for you, ask for feedback from 5-6 people who know you well as to what this might be for you.
3)Develop an underutilized strength. What is an underutilized strength you may wish to develop? Create a SMART plan around this. Then go for it! The joy of discovering something new such as creative writing, learning more accounting for non-accountants, IT, or art classes will not only unleash a whole lot of energy and fun but it will give your other strengths longevity and maybe even save you from early burn out!
Like to find out more about your strengths and passion? Download your free excerpt or order your copy of Get your Groove Back – how SQ can give you the work and life you really want.
Tags: burn-out, career derailment, Career development, career fulfillment, signature strengths
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Great article Jasbindar!
It is so important to understand our strengths and use them to advantage. As you say, sometimes overusing them can cause us to become rigid and drained and neglect other parts of ourselves that could be of benefit to the situation. As well as looking at those underutilised strengths and giving them some ‘air time’ I have found it helpful to think about how we can often caught up in using the ‘learned behaviours’- those things that we become good at, but that don’t really contribute to a sense of excitement and enjoyment because they don’t truly come from our true personal strengths-base.
Awareness gives us choices in how we act and react. Interesting stuff!
Absolutely right. We are creatures of our conditioning and sometimes it takes a long time to differentiate between the real, more authentic self versus who we think we are….perhaps even a life long journey!