When Strengths Get in the Way!  

Do you have strengths that tend to hold you back? I sure do!

I constantly review my progress toward my goals and how I want my life to look.

I am also like everyone else and have some things on my list that seem to get stuck or do not want to move in the right direction.

I have several, but one big one was the clutter I had hidden in the closets, the drawers, and storage sections in my home.

So when I started to evaluate and ask myself why. I realized I lacked the focus it would take to go through it all and get it out of the house.

So, why was I lacking focus? I determined I wasn’t focusing long enough at one time to make a dent in it.

I may get started, but soon I would get an idea or run across something I wanted to read or maybe a project (like a lamp I want to paint) I wanted to start.

I remembered from my coaching session with Dr. Judy Oskam that we sometimes must dial down a top strength to get to another strength. I look at it like sometimes I need to get them out of my way.

Focus is one of my top ten strengths, but ideation, learning, and input are ahead. I needed to harness those for a few days to focus.

Since competition is one of my strong strengths, I added it to my plan to make focusing more fun. So I cleared a few days on my calendar.

I planned to answer calls and emails and do what was necessary, limiting appointments and new work for those few days.

Every morning I started in on the clutter. The added competition component was to reach a specific calorie goal by supper every day (5:00-5:30).

This allowed me to use another strength to encourage more effort.

I limited the magazine articles, newspapers, and books I was reading that week. I didn’t meet any new people or solve any problems.

I ate peanut butter and crackers every day for lunch, so it was one less decision to make during my week of focus.

The results were fantastic. It took five full days to get it all completed and organized.

I made many trips to Goodwill. I met my calories by supper goal four of the five days that week. I was close on the day I didn’t make it.

I got it all done, and it felt great!

The downside of holding back my top strengths was my lack of creativity and excitement for the week.

I was more serious and driven. Thankfully I don’t have to be this extreme every week.

But now I know what’s required to get massive progress on a physical and focus-driven project.

I realized I had some ideas about limiting content input for a project from a book, Learn In and Use It for Life (https://a.co/d/2tOwtGn ), which I picked up at Goodwill back in July. I finished it last week it’s so good.

I am interested in learning to harness my creativity. It can get a bit messy. Let me know if you have any tips.

I will leave you with this thought inspired by the book.

We often wait and long for the day. We have unlimited time and resources for our best work.

The opposite is closer to the truth. We can create what is often our best work when we have limited resources with which to work and deadlines.

I’ve thought about it, and I think that’s true for me. I was waiting to clear my clutter when I had a clear calendar and wasn’t working to reach other big goals. Let’s face it, that was never going to be the case.

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