Discovering Your Brilliance
Author: Susan Dunn, M. A.

How do you figure out what you were meant to do? How do you know what you're really good at? What can you do that makes you shine?

One obstacle most of us have is that we really don't know. People are quick to point out our weaknesses and most of us in childhood on onward were pushed toward shoring up our weaknesses rather than identifying our strengths and working on them. The goal has been "well-rounded," not "sharp."

Alex is a published novelist. He was 21 before someone whose opinion he trusted pointed out to him that he could write. He hadn't a clue. He had started a rudimentary journal when he was 8, and a neighborhood newsletter when he was 10. He got As in English, but he also did in Math and Social Studies. He thought writing was something everyone could do and no big deal.

This happens all too often with talents. Talents are innate; something so easy for you to do you can't remember when you couldn't do it; something you 'can't help doing' so you don't feel it when you do it, and you also think everyone can, they just aren't . Talents are also things that are fun for you to do, almost in the sense of flow - you'd do them even if you weren't getting paid, and in fact they are the hobbies and avocations of many of us. If you cease doing it for a while and start up again, you're immediately back up to speed. Knowledge and skills can be acquired, but talents are innate.

Why is this important? In their book, "Now, Discover Your Strengths," Buckingham and Clifton propose the theory that if you work in your strength areas, you can perform consistently and effortlessly at a near perfect level and find great satisfaction without a whole lot of stress. Sounds like heaven on earth, doesn't it? Well, there are ways to get there.

Talents + skill + knowledge = strengths. So how can you figure out your innate talents are? You can buy their book and take the StrengthsFinders profile, which is very good. It will give you your top 5 signature themes and they're such things as: Achiever, Self-assurance, Relator, Empathy, Focus, Analytical or Strategic. You can see that they're work-related, thinking styles and ways of approachign life rather than qualities such as "courage" or "bravery," or fields of knowledge such as "math" or "English."

Here are some other ways to explore your innate talents and find your brilliance:

1. Think about what you liked to do as a child. Talents are innate; they appear early. Reading? Writing? Teaching? Acting? Examining bugs? Helping others? These are clues.

2. Ask your parents what you liked to do as a child. I suggest to clients that they ask their parents "What about me drove you nuts?" What drove me nuts about my eldest son was that he was always tinkering - taking apart bikes, watches, throwing away instructions and just putting together model, legos, little pieces everywhere. And what does he do quite happily as an adult? Calibrates 0,000 machines in his job as owner of a custom CD manufacturing plant.

3. Keep in mind that your parents were human, and they had their own "issues." For instance, I have a client whose father thought he shouldn't be a minister, and degraded all his natural talents--even "calling"--in that direction.

4. Parents can't recognize what they don't know. A mathematical genius born to two English majors may never get reinforcement for his talents. If you have a child like that, and see it, please find them someone who can affirm and value their talents so they don't feel alone in what they like to do, and receive no affirmation or guidance.

5. Think about what you like to do when you have a choice. What do you do in your spare time? What do you do on Sunday afternoon? Paula always sneaks off and reads. Two of her themes are Intellection and Learner. She surfs the Internet for information, and is happy at work doing market research and writing reports.

6. "Work like you don't need the money..." -- what would you do even if you weren't paid to do it? You may already be doing it "for free," as I am in writing this article. What would you volunteer to do? One way to try out a talent is to do volunteer work where you get to use a new skill and see how it feels.

7. Flow. What activity do you 'get lost in'. You start doing it -- like working on your car, or empathizing with someone -- and you 'come to' 4 hours later having missed your lunch and your 2 o'clock appointment. What absorbs you fully?

8. What gives you deep satisfaction? If you haven't ever felt "deep satisfaction," as many of us haven't, having been forced into certain jobs for various reasons, you'll have to do a little work on yourself to learn to hear that small, still, voice within.

9. Take notice of what you learn quickly. You may be given an assignment at work and almost instantly excel at it. That's a sign that it's pulling on an innate talent.

10. Listen to your self-talk. When you're doing something that uses an innate talent you're often thinking--"When can I do this again?" or even "This is fun. I'm in the groove."

Spending some time investigating your natural talents can pay off handsomely in the long run.








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Susan Dunn, M.A. is a personal life coach who helps her clients succeed by developing their emotional intelligence, understanding their strengths better, and doing the inner work. You can visit her on the web at http://www.susandunn.cc

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