Match Your Career Goals with Your Strengths

I can't imagine doing work that requires even an average amount of mathematical calculation. That's just not my strength. Imagine highly successful people like Mark Zuckerberg doing work other than what he is doing now. He would probably not be as successful. I'd like to talk about this now because I've seen too many people waste their time applying for work that clearly are not aligned with their talents. They often fail during the screening process or if the process is bad, they get hired and fail miserably at work.

I believe all people have a particular set of aptitudes that suit certain kind of work. I think it is a good investment of time and effort to discover one's strengths and then align one's career plans with it. After discovering your strengths it is important to enhance them by exposing yourself to activities that will use it similar to doing a specific exercise to grow a particular muscle. For example if you found that you are good in written communication, read books on how to become a better writer and/or write a blog to exercise your creative writing muscle. If you like dabbling into computers of programming, try working on a coding project. train yourself to expand your coding prowess.

I also highly recommend Clifton StrengthFinder. It will help you discover what strengths or "themes" you have that you can capitalize on. You can download the full list of themes here. It is also a good idea to learn more about your personality and see which careers fit you. The web is full of free online personality test. Here's a really good one.

Discovering your strengths will help you choose a career your can do well in. Find work that you can be good and enjoy doing and you will be one happy, productive worker. Your success will push you up to bigger roles in the organization that you are in. Make sure that you do not stray away from your strengths and your source of professional bliss.