In the previous two blogs, we’d discussed two methods for assessing your strengths and weaknesses: Collecting results from free on-line self-assessment tools, and how to gather feedback from your peers about who you are or how you are perceived by others.
Remember the goal, you are trying to figure out your strengths and weaknesses so that you can plan your career path for effectively and you can write a resume that best portrays your strengths.
Perform a Self-Exam
Examining the way you live your life and the situations you have experienced can reveal things you may want to change or improve. The exercises below will help you take a look at your experiences so that you can better identify your strengths and weaknesses.
Exercise: Do a Situation Analysis
Think of a few situations you’ve experienced over the past two years that give insight into your strengths and weaknesses —maybe a critical decision you’ve had to make, an important task you’ve led or been a part of, or even a significant personal interaction. Use the questions below to help analyze each situation.
- What was the situation? What was happening, who was there?
- What was your goal and did you reach it? What were you trying to accomplish, what resources or skills did you have or not have that you needed?
- What did you say and think? Were you able to find the right words to make your point? What were you thinking at the time? What made you feel good (confident, excited) or bad (confused, worried)?
- What did you do? How did you act (including your body language)? Why did you choose to act the way you did? How did others react? Did you help or hurt the situation? Did you adjust your actions based on how others were reacting?
- Why did you act the way you did? What knowledge and skills led you to act the way you did?
- What could have helped you handle the situation better? How could you have used your strengths to reach a better outcome? Are there any weaknesses that you should make a high priority for your self-development efforts?
Use the questions above to record important information from your experience. After you record the information, look for key factors that influenced how the situation progressed and the overall outcome. These factors may suggest strengths or weaknesses that you will want to work on in your self-development effort. For example, if you froze when you had to give a presentation to a senior manager, maybe you should work on your presentation skills or comfort level working with senior managers. If you lacked knowledge or a skill that you needed to achieve a goal, you may want to work to gain that knowledge or skill. If you felt confident or performed well, you could identify the strengths (knowledge, skills, or abilities) that allowed this and then work to make them even stronger.
By knowing how your actions affected the situation and your thoughts and feelings associated with those actions, you can work to become more self-aware and able to consciously choose the most productive actions. In addition to identifying specific strengths and weaknesses, your situation analysis may suggest broader interests that you would like to pursue or things that you want to avoid in the future. Keep in mind that if you see the same factor at work in multiple situations, it is likely to be a significant strength or weakness that you may want to develop. These are only a few of the ways that a situation analysis may suggest self-development objectives. What do your situations suggest?
- Situation Analysis What was the situation?
- What was your goal and did you reach it?
- What did you say and think?
- What did you do?
- Why did you act the way you did?
- What could have helped you handle the situation better?
Exercise: Do a Self-Analysis
Complete the statements below as they relate to any part of your life—work or home. Be as specific as you can. Use as many or as few items as you find necessary to identify unique aspects of your strengths and weaknesses.
Self-Analysis Strengths
- The skill or ability that I am best at is
- The personal quality that I rely on most for my success is
- I am most knowledgeable about
- The activities I look forward to include
- I would love to learn more about
- The accomplishment I am most proud of is
- Others usually come to me for help on
- Others think the best job for me would be
Self-Analysis Weaknesses
- The skill or ability that is always difficult for me is
- I don’t know as much as I should about
- I usually go to others for help on
- The situation that causes me the most frustration is
- I am most hesitant when I try to
- I am most concerned about my
- Others think I am not very good at
- I would become a more valued member of my organization if I
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