Identifying Your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT)
It’s one of the hardest things to do in life – to be completely honest with ourselves about ourselves. It demands brutal truthfulness about our strengths and weaknesses, no matter how these revelations may make us feel about ourselves.
This tool may take several days or even weeks, as it requires serious reflection.
Beginning with your strengths, make a list of five areas in which you excel, and prioritize them from 1 to 5, with 1 being your greatest strength. You can have more than 5 (and you are encouraged to identify many more than 5), but it is important to gain clarity about your top 5. These could be anything: being a great team member, being the best Mum or Dad in the entire state, writing first-rate sales reports, developing an impeccably accurate spreadsheet or killer graphs.
1. Identify your strengths here:
2. Now, list your top 5 in the order of strength (with 1 being your greatest).
Now, do the same for weaknesses. (Nobody’s perfect – sorry!) Why is this important? Because these may become things you can delegate to others for whom they are strengths (well, maybe not being a Mum or Dad). But these are areas that will cause you to stall on your way to bigger and better things, or will cause you to stumble, or even wreck your plans before you can get them off the ground.
Remember they are not always Weaknesses they are also Areas of Improvement / Development – a mind set change there can change the way we see these areas of development.
3. Identify your weaknesses here:
4. Now, list your 5 greatest weaknesses (starting with the weakest).
Once you have both lists, step back, take a good look, and make peace with it. We all have good and bad points, and it’s important to accept this fact of life.
Now, to the next steps: figuring out how to leverage your strengths and minimize your weaknesses.
5. How can you leverage your strengths?
It used to be that organisations managed the careers of their people, but today that responsibility belongs to each one of us (not only in our careers, but also in our lives in totality). We have the responsibility to know ourselves and determine where and how we perform best, and do more of that (and transfer those skills and talents to other areas of our lives). So, for example, if you are really creative and have great interpersonal skills, perhaps you can leverage your skills and talents to help your favorite charity with their annual gala or silent auction (if one of your values is to make a contribution in your local community).
Okay? Review your strengths again, and identify ways you can leverage them. Can your team strengths help another team leader? Can your managerial strengths be put to use mentoring a junior manager? Can your creative skills be put to use with kids in the community? Journal on this a bit here . . .
6. And now take a look at how you might minimise your weaknesses. Are these areas that you can hire someone else (e.g., take care of your bookkeeping, design your website, organize or create your filing system, maintain your garden or landscaping, etc.) Alternatively, are there some ways you can eliminate some of these things from your life altogether?
Journal a bit here on this topic . . .
Remember: our greatest successes come from placing ourselves in a position where we can regularly express our strengths so they can meet with opportunities. We also find ourselves doing this for others – helping others to maximize their abilities. All of this leads to greater productivity and much greater career and life satisfaction.
It all begins with you. Do you know your strengths and weaknesses and are you able to successfully manage them?
7. Identify your Threats (Risks / Blockages) here:
8. Now, list your 5 greatest Threats (starting with the highest Risk).
9. Identify your Opportunities here:
10. Now, list your 5 greatest Opportunities (starting with the Strongest and most impactful).
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