Do you know what your natural business skills are?
Each one of us possesses certain things we are naturally good at that help us succeed in – and often even direct – our Uncommon Vocations. Examples of such skills include being comfortable talking to big groups, having a flair for website design, writing well, or being able to connect people and organizations effectively.
Yet simply having an innate gift is not enough: to reach ultimate success you need to actively improve your business skills.
When I hear people talking about improving their skills, it is often in the context of bringing those skills they lack up to par with their other skills. The idea is to make an individual well-rounded and equally proficient in all things. However, I have found that it is much more beneficial to give your time to improving your strengths first then working on your weaknesses.
Your strengths improved can carry you to great heights, giving you the time, leisure, and stability to devote time to working on weaknesses. Focusing on your weaknesses can keep your pace slow and also stunt progress by being emotionally depressing.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been spending a good amount of my time over at the ProBlogger archives reading as much as I can about how to better this site. While I am confident in my natural ability to mess around with HTML and craft blog posts, I know that these skills are just raw potential that, while they have brought in some success in their untouched form, could really achieve something if honed.
The initial result of my strategy of skill enhancement has proved my point: traffic, comment participation, and earnings are up significantly already.
As an Uncommoner, you need to know and be confident in whatever your natural business skills are because they are what will help you stand out from the crowd. However, by investing some time and resources into improving that talent you are giving yourself every opportunity to live up to your unique potential and achieve stellar success.
Here are some tips on improving your natural business skills (assuming you are already aware of what some of them are):
- Identify one or two to work on at a time. Don’t try to hone more than two at a time to keep your resources and attention sharp and effective.
- Perform a Google search on that skill and read as much as possible online about strategies to improve it
- Review the classes offered by your local community college to see if there is a course that suits your skills
- Identify and approach someone who you see as a master in your skill area and ask to pick their brain over coffee or Skype (most people love talking about themselves, so you will get more “yes’s” than you imagine!)
- Visit your local book store for how-to guides on your skill
- Search for online or local associations or organizations that specialize in your skill and join/sit in on meetings
Remember there is a difference between blindly ignoring your weaknesses and acknowledging they exist but choosing not to focus on them. Being aware of your weaknesses is important as well because you can employ technology or other people to help you manage them until you can give them your full attention.
You have something worthwhile to contribute to the world, and you already have the skills to be successful in that vocation. By taking some time to fine tune those skills you are giving yourself every opportunity to be incredibly successful. So I ask you again: do you know what your natural business skills are…and more importantly, what’s your game plan for improving them?
Here’s to your Uncommon Life,
{ 1 trackback }
{ 0 comments… add one now }