Getting Powered Up: Turning Your Strengths Into Superpowers
I am deeply passionate about strengths.
As a long-time strengths-practitioner and coach, I’ve seen and experienced first-hand how transformative a shift to strengths can be.
I want everyone to feel the supercharge of positive energy and amazing results that come from knowing and experiencing strengths as superpowers. So much so, I wrote a book on the subject. Here’s a sneak peek from my book where I share my own approach to knowing and using strengths as superpowers – an approach I call Powering Up strengths.
Strengths are often an untapped or underappreciated personal resource. When used skilfully and deliberately, they have enormous potential. When we take the information from a strengths assessment and apply our strengths masterfully, we power up our strengths. We allow our strengths to work to their full and unique potential.
To show up as your best self, you must fully understand why you think, feel and behave as you do. That’s self-awareness. Then, you can use that understanding to make shifts and changes and create new habits that will get better results. That’s self-management. When you can do both of these, you can better control your superpowers and move your focus to influencing and collaborating in skilful and thoughtful ways. That’s self-mastery.
Like any skilful practice, achieving self-mastery requires a sustained and deliberate effort. Building muscle strength takes time and repeatedly lifting heavy weights. Building character strength requires a commitment to habits of self-awareness and self-management. It means overriding our deeply entrenched urges and habits.
We need to notice and be curious when we feel energised and ‘in the zone’ to see how our strengths work well for us. We also need to pull ourselves up when things are not going well, when we feel frustrated, or when we are getting in our own way. If you have heard the saying, ‘butting your head against a brick wall’, that is what it looks like when we do the same awkward thing over and over and expect a different result. It is a great description of a lack of self-awareness and self-management.
I have thought long and hard about what it takes to get from frustration to that ‘Yes!’ triumphant air punch moment. I saw a clear, three-stage process that became the Powered Up model.
Self-Awareness: Here, we name our strengths and describe them in action, both when they work for us and when they get in our way. When we put effort into awareness, we sharpen those tools and work out how to use our strengths best. This step prepares us for the next one.
Self-Management: We thoughtfully respond to situations using the right strength at the right time. In this stage, we better appreciate our strengths and are more forgiving of our failings, allowing us to adopt a growth or a learner mindset. When we do this, we maximise our energy. Instead of giving ourselves a hard time, we recognise when our strengths are overused or misused. Then, we identify a better approach by using our strengths differently and moving on. There is so much potential here to improve self-confidence.
Self-Mastery: This means applying the right strength at the right time, with the right intensity. We are curious and aware of others’ strengths and can achieve remarkable results by partnering our strengths with theirs. Relationships transform because our mindset is different and we move more readily from judgement to empathy.
You will notice that each step builds on those before it. As we move through them, we continue to develop the insights and tools that help us power up our strengths.
My book steps through each stage with practical tools to reach self-mastery. If you’re ready for a serious confidence and skills boost, by tapping into strengths, check out my book here.
Want to supercharge your results? I offer tailored coaching and development for individuals and teams. Find out more here.
