What are you good at?

If someone were to ask, "what are you good at?" can you answer that question with a few sentences? A bulleted list? Knowing what you're good at, what you're really amazing at, what you're kind of good at, the value add that only you can bring, what you're good at but hate doing (yes, that is a thing), is like having a superpower.

If you know what you're good at, you'll always know how you can best contribute to an idea or a project. Better still, knowing what you're good at can free you from confusion over what you should be doing with your life. It can help you focus your improvement efforts. Should you get even better at this thing you're good at, or should you work on something you're not so good at?

If you're looking for jobs or looking for the next opportunity, then doing the reflective work first to really figure out what you're good at and also what brings you joy will help you to make purposeful decisions about your career.

Here are a few simple examples:

• If what you're really good at and love doing is strategic thinking and planning - the 1000 foot view - you're likely to be pretty miserable in a tech support position. There's nothing visionary or strategic about telling someone for the 10,000th time that they need to publish their course first before students can see it.

• If what you're really good at and love doing is completing detail oriented, complex work as fast as you can, you'll probably hate managing people. People are messy. And nothing you do with people will be fast.

• If what you're really good at and love doing is research, basking in complexity and dreaming up ways to innovate, then building online courses for faculty might not be the right job for you. Often these roles have strict deadlines, busy subject matter experts, and limited time for creativity. You're likely to be let down at least a little bit with every project you do.

Ultimately, there is a consequence to being in the wrong place. When we work every day in roles that don't allow us to maximize what we're good at and to spend time getting better at those things we love, it can take a toll on our mental well being. There are ways of shifting your work in the roles you're in to better align with these strengths, but in order to do that, you have to first know what those strengths are.

Questions to help you figure out what you're good at (if you don't already know):

1. Complete a core values exercise (or here for a pdf core values exercise). Once you've identified your main values and grouped them into the top 5 categories and ranked them, spend some time thinking about how you manifest those values in your work. What you value most will often transfer to what you're good at.

Example: If one of your top values is "helpfulness", what do you do in a day that represents that value? Do you do something to be helpful that no one else does? Do you go out of your way to learn new ways to be helpful to others? If so, one of the things you might be good at is quick problem solving. You do it because of your value to be helpful, but you've gotten good at problem solving because of it.

2. Think about what puts you into a flow state when working. We often will get better at that type of work simply because it provides so much joy. It's likely something you're at least a little bit good at already as one characteristic of a flow state is that the work is challenging but not impossible.

3. Ask your colleagues what they think you're good at. They likely admire you for some aspect of your work.

4. Think about a time that you received praise, recognition, an award, etc. for something you did and it took you by surprise. Whatever skills/competencies went into that work, that's likely something you're good at but haven't realized yet.