New Year, Same You

Have you ever heard the advice “just be yourself?” Well, it turns out that it’s pretty true everywhere, not just in the dating world. Honesty with yourself about yourself is crucial to success in the business world, regardless of where you are on the corporate ladder. 

There are plenty of tests out there that can evaluate your work tendencies, places or skills where you excel, areas where you definitely don’t, etc. These can be useful as a starting point, but a lot of self-honesty means having a sit down with your brain and going through what you’ve learned and your past experiences. What have you done that you hated? That you enjoyed? 

It’s all well and good to be amazing at something, but hate every minute of doing it. That’s usually a sign that either you shouldn’t pursue that or that you need to look for a different application (one that you’ll like better). So, when it comes to just being yourself, you’ll need to think about your strengths, your things to delegate, and your interests. 

Value Your Strengths

The first part of being yourself is figuring out what you’re good at and advocating for yourself. What is something only you can contribute? Whether it’s on an individual, team, or company level, take some time to think about what you do at work. Which parts you excel at. What kind of value you bring to your bosses and coworkers. 

Many companies are more reputable than the average Facebook personality quiz, and they offer a wide range of tests to help you pinpoint aspects of your personality, areas where you excel, your emotional intelligence, how you interact with others in the workplace, and other important things. 

Once you’ve identified your greatest strengths, analyze your day-to-day tasks. Are you leveraging the things you’re good at? How much time do you spend on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis doing those things? How much time do you spend doing other stuff? 

ABL (Always Be Learning)

It’s great to know what you’re good at, but there’s always more on the horizon. When you’re committed to a constant learning mindset, you’ll get the opportunity to explore other areas that you might turn out to be pretty good at, too. Not to mention other applications for your existing rockstar skills. 

Don’t get bogged down in your specific role or even your company either. Keep an open mind and explore everything in your industry. 

Double Down

Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you can’t be better. You can be an amazing writer and still acknowledge that there are new approaches, new software, and new ideas coming out all the time. Maybe you’re the best on your team or in your company. Guess what? You could still be better.

Don’t make the mistake of becoming complacent. Go to seminars and talks, attend conventions, network with people in your industry, and take online courses. Whatever you need to do to stay up to date and ensure you’re bringing the very best to your work. 

Learn to Delegate

Okay, we’ve talked about what you’re good at. Much as no one wants to, it’s time to bring up the stuff you’re not so good at. You know, the stuff that no one on your team would ever ask you to do. A lot of people manage to do the hard work of sitting down and listing their weaknesses but then say, “Fine. I admit it. I’m not great in those areas. I just need to improve!”

Cut to months later, head in hands, a massive blow to the ego, and an overwhelming dread about going into the office. 

I know; that’s not everyone. Sometimes, sitting down and deciding to improve a skill is the right approach. However, that’s usually true when the skill is something you genuinely can’t succeed without, and with a bit of creative thinking, there aren’t many of those. In fact, many people could save themselves a lot of headaches (and disappointment) by changing how they look at these perceived ‘weaknesses.’ A few tests even call them deficits like you’re an economy. But what if we looked at them another way?

Say, as opportunities to delegate. 

The Benefits of Delegating

When you start thinking about it that way, it’s more than just putting a positive spin. You’re giving yourself the opportunity to practice another crucial skill: the art of delegation. You might be surprised how hard it is to let go and trust that someone else will have your back and do something right, even if you know you can’t. 

It’s more than okay to have things you should delegate. It’s called being human. 

You don’t need to waste hours on learning or improving skills that end up with you banging your head against the wall. Give those tasks to someone else who it comes naturally to. It’ll get done faster and more efficiently. Plus, now you’ve got all that time to focus on the things you bring to the table. Not to mention the fact that delegation is an important quality for leaders and managers, and you’ll be flexing that muscle. 

How to Delegate

You just tell someone else to do that thing you’re not so good at, and boom! You’re done, right? Well, not really. There are actually a lot of factors involved in delegating beyond letting go of the idea that you have to do everything yourself. Sure, you want to choose someone who’s good at the task and who has the bandwidth to take it on, and you need to be clear about what you’re expecting. 

But the two hardest aspects of delegating are usually the need for patience and the ability to accept occasional failure. Patience because you need to work around the other person/team’s schedule. And you have to remember that things happen. That person who you were depending on to finish by Monday had a family emergency, or your mutual boss prioritized something else. 

Worse than that, sometimes even people who are great at something make a mistake. It happens to all of us. It takes a lot to breathe and not lose it with the person. Even if it means you take the blame for it. You can’t let one mistake (or one person) put you off delegation entirely. 

What Do You Like To Do?

One of the strangest things in life to me is how little we ask people (employees, managers, CEOs) what they enjoy doing. Someone could be absolutely ingenious at coding but detest their daily tasks. It’s obviously a skill and something they should value, but they’re clearly not enjoying time spent employing it. So, what should they do?

Well, one option, already mentioned above, is to look for alternative applications. If you’re a fantastic coder, but performing website maintenance makes you want to quit your job and leave the country, it’s probably time to look into other job options. What else can you do with that coding knowledge? Are there available opportunities, either within your company or outside, to apply that skill in a way that you’d find more fun?

Another option is that you can start thinking about related skills. Someone who has mastered Python might be able to pick up other coding languages more easily than someone who doesn’t know an if statement from a while loop. It can be challenging to let go of something that you’re so good at to take a stab at something else, but in the long run, it can help you find a position that doesn’t make you miserable.

Creative Thinking

Okay, I know what you’re thinking: the things I like have nothing to do with work. That’s okay! If you’ve pinpointed what you enjoy and it’s (surprise!) not working, guess what? You’re not out of luck. You may just not be coming at this from the right angle. 

You’ve heard of side gigs. Maybe that’s something you’re interested in, maybe it isn’t. It’s definitely one approach to incorporating what you care about in your work. Another is to reevaluate your skills and break them down to a simple level. When you look at other jobs, even ones that appear to be outside of your industry, you might be surprised how much they have in common with what you already do. The same goes for checking out what your colleagues and bosses do. Do those jobs seem more appealing? Maybe a lateral transfer would help.

Last Point

Walking into the same safe job, day in and day out, that you can’t stand, even if you’re a whiz at what you’re doing, is never going to make you happy. Period. 

Look, I’m not saying stand up and quit right now. What I am saying is that right now, you should start making a plan. Figure out what would make you happy. Whatever that may be, quitting, switching positions, getting a promotion, trying something totally new. 

The bottom line is that the whole point of valuing your skills, knowing when to delegate, and making money in general is all to help you live the life you want. Money, promotions, businesses…they can’t do that. They can help, for sure, but you have to know what makes you happy so that you can start planning backward to reach that goal.