Consider Doing a SWOT Analysis on Yourself

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When people create case studies on businesses, they often include a SWOT analysis. SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. If you can do this for business, why not consider doing one for yourself? It can help you gain insight about yourself and reinforce the idea of believing in yourself.

The concept of SWOT is usually diagrammed in quadrants or squares, representing each of the words of the acronym. It’s up to you as to which squares to place each of the words. By convention, the upper-left square is for Strengths, while the lower-left square is for Opportunities. The upper-right square is for Weaknesses, and the lower-right square is for Threats.

Fill up each quadrant with appropriate items relating to the heading of the quadrant. To take this a step further, ask family and friends to help you fill up the quadrants. After you have them all filled, you can evaluate them to see what needs improvement.

Don’t let the negative aspects (Weaknesses, Threats) trip you up when creating your analysis. You are listing them to gain perspective in areas that you need your focus. In fact, some weaknesses you may not want to tackle because it doesn’t interest you. Threats are merely items to be aware of and may help you try to overcome them.

The key to success is to be as honest as possible with yourself about all the items included in the analysis. If you aren’t, it isn’t going to help you much, and you may focus on the wrong items to improve. Further, you may not be as strong in some areas as you believed, which can lead you on the wrong path as well.

A representative SWOT analysis will give you a great foundation for your life, both personally and professionally. You can use it as a tool to advance your goals. You will learn about yourself and who you are. Don’t rush this process. You want it to be as representative of yourself as possible. It’s better to take several days or even weeks than to try to list items for the sake of filling up the quadrants.

Once you feel comfortable that you have the right items for your analysis, you can use it to help you believe in yourself. It’s all there for you to reference, and it can help you to refine your goals and tasks further.

To your success

Michael W

Michael W

P.S. If you are looking for a confidence program that can help you with your self development. Send me an email at michael@youaresuccesslifecoach.com to request a copy of my “Maximum Confidence Transformation Package. Afterwards we can arrange a discovery telephone call to discuss the package and how you can benefit further from developing your confidence level.

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3 Tips to Increase Your Personal Power

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Personal power is never fully developed. Like your body, it needs exercise. Not a couple of times a week. Instead, conscious training several times a day. To develop habits that ingrain beliefs, values and help you become at one with yourself. When you know yourself, value yourself and stay true to you, you’ll find meaningful purpose in all areas of life. At the core of the true you is the ability to bring the best out in those around you.

That’s the makings of a true leader. Leading from a place of wisdom and not using positional power alone.

You can have positional power and personal power, but you cannot be an effective leader without personal power. Nor do you need the positional power to be a driving force for good in your own life and those around you.

3 Tips to Boost Your Personal Power

1. Strive to learn more

Commit to consistent learning and be broad about the topics you study. Study life and attend seminars and workshops to build your expertise. Most important is to learn more about yourself continually. Try new things, experiment, take some risks and put yourself into situations that make you feel vulnerable. Go to the cinema after work instead of feeling the need to have drinks with your colleagues, just because you feel the need to fit in. Do what feels right by you.

2. Practice Mindful Gratitude

Practicing gratitude is among the most positive habits you can develop. Keeping a gratitude journal can serve you in multiple ways. You’ll feel better, sleep better, eat healthier, have stronger relationships with everyone important in your life, and you’ll feel happier for being grateful for everything you have surrounding you.

3. Own Your Authenticity

Authenticity is about being true to you. It is only possible when you have in-depth knowledge and know your strengths and weaknesses. You will begin to act with deliberate intentions that are in line with your moral compass. You will know your place and when to delegate and how to go about using your relationship skills to get people to do things for you that you know they’ll do a better job than you could if you were to try.

That’s where coming from a place of personal power to influence others will help push you toward reaching your goals faster, because you will have strong relationships with people who value your input, expertise, trust your credibility and will help you when you ask, without hesitation.

To your success

Michael W

Michael W

P.S. If you are looking for a confidence program that can help you with your self development. Send me an email at michael@youaresuccesslifecoach.com to request a copy of my “Maximum Confidence Transformation Package. Afterwards we can arrange a discovery telephone call to discuss the package and how you can benefit further from developing your confidence level.

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Successful People Deal with Adversity

adversity

Did you know that successful people deal with adversity? It’s true. If you read the stories or profiles of most successful people, you will be surprised at just how adverse their situations were. They often tell the stories for others to learn and use to overcome adversity.

You should read the profiles of successful people. They contain gems of information and can act as a resource for everyone else. The story is one aspect of reading about them. However, how they dealt with the situations is often a source of inspiration. When you become inspired, you increase your chances of dealing with your problems.

Inspiration doesn’t last forever, unfortunately. You need to reinforce the message. If you can, try to set aside time to read one story of a successful person every month. It will help you with your inspiration, and it will feed ideas on how to use their stories to make your life easier or better.

The stories of some people are dated. However, their techniques may be timeless. A perfect example of this is Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. The stories themselves describe people and occupations of days long gone. But, his techniques are as valid today as they were back then.

You can read all about the stories of successful people and get inspired. But, if you don’t take action, it will be of little help to you. At that point, you become nothing more than a dreamer. Having dreams is good, but you need to make sure you take action on those dreams.

Reading the stories of successful people shows that they are just like the rest of us. There isn’t anything superhuman about them that led them to their successes. You will find a common theme among those facing adversity. They had persistence and kept a positive attitude. Those two attributes will take you far when facing any situation.

You can choose to read stories online or find material in your local library. You can also choose to find stories on the internet. Be careful of the resources you find online. Anyone can publish whatever they like and sound convincing on their authority. Make sure you check the resources and keep a critical eye out for people who don’t present qualified information.

When you get in the habit of reading material of successful people, you will shift to a successful mindset yourself. You will have a memory bank of stories to draw inspiration.

To your success

Michael W

Michael W

P.S. If you are looking for a confidence program that can help you with your self development. Send me an email at michael@youaresuccesslifecoach.com to request a copy of my “Maximum Confidence Transformation Package. Afterwards we can arrange a discovery telephone call to discuss the package and how you can benefit further from developing your confidence level.

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Your Strengths Start Out as Weaknesses

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Do you ever look back on something you thought was difficult, only to now believe it’s easy? The point is, we don’t start out in life with strengths set in stone. We start with an empty slate. Many people have natural abilities to some degree, but they still need to improve their weaknesses. It just doesn’t take them as long as others.

When you look at your strengths as something that was a weakness, you can take comfort in knowing your current weaknesses will someday be strengths. Of course, this is if you want to turn them into strengths. There may be reasons why you don’t want to put in the effort. There are only 365 days in a year, after all. We have other situations happening in our lives that cause us to put certain things on the back burner.

You should ask yourself how important are some of your weaknesses? Are they preventing you from obtaining your goals? If not, then ask if improving them would be nice to do, but not necessary. You can still live your life without getting better with those weak areas.

For instance, maybe you love the game of softball and have joined a league. But, you don’t have much time to practice, other than the two days per week the team meets up for that purpose. You are not a good player but enjoy the game. If you could become a stronger player that would be wonderful, but it isn’t something that’s going to change your life much.

On the other hand, if not having a certain skill is preventing you from getting a promotion, and that is important to you (it’s not for everybody), then you may want to focus on getting better at that skill.

This is when you use the strengths-once-were-weaknesses mindset. It helps you to figure out what steps you need to take to improve the current stage of your weakness. It can help you to determine the time needed to get it done. You will also need to understand what it will take to improve the weaknesses so that you can accurately measure your success. That’s not always as straightforward as we would like.

Talk to people who already have accomplished what you are trying to do. Ask questions about what they did to overcome those weaknesses, and see if they have any resources for you to take advantage of. This can get you where you want to be much quicker than going it alone.

To your success

Michael W

Michael W

P.S. If you are looking for a confidence program that can help you with your self development. Send me an email at michael@youaresuccesslifecoach.com to request a copy of my “Maximum Confidence Transformation Package”. Afterwards we can arrange a discovery telephone call to discuss the package and how you can benefit further from developing your confidence level.

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Are Your Closest Relationships Supporting Your Personal Satisfaction?

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Sometimes, we’re held back from achieving our goals by the people we least suspect: those closest to us. Although it might be hard to accept, the people you’re the most well acquainted with might be working against you, whether they realize it or not.

They act as obstacles, preventing you from doing the things you love or pursuing your dream job. They might say things that make you rethink the path you want to go down, or make you feel as if you won’t be good enough to make it to your goals – especially if you’re trying to launch a new career path for something like online entrepreneurial efforts.

However, it’s not always that clear. Your friends and family will have different ways of interfering with your personal satisfaction. Some might be very straightforward and blunt, telling you that your goals are unrealistic or that you’re not good enough to achieve them.

The most dangerous kind are the ones who disguise their blocking as an attempt to help you. They might tell you to not pursue your dreams in the name of job security or some other excuse.

They could try to steer you in another direction, assuring you it’s the best path for you. In reality, only you know what’s best for you. Even if your closest relationships are acting as obstacles, you can’t just cut out everyone who’s important in your life.

If you just started seeing someone and they wanted you to stop pursuing your dreams, then perhaps it’d be a good idea to stop seeing them. However, how could you cut out your own parents if they tried to steer you towards a different career?

You have to be able to set a certain boundary in which you consider their advice if they give it to you, and respectfully decline it if you don’t agree with it. However, if they began to insult your career choice or goals, then they would be crossing the boundary you set.

Once people cross your boundaries, you have to make the decision of whether or not you should keep them in your life or distance yourself from them. You should weigh their positive and negative benefits, and if they’re an overall drag on your happiness, there’s no reason to keep them around – at least not on a continual basis.

Let them know that they’re bringing you down, and you’re not going to associate with them until they change their ways. If you let these people stick around in your life and tell you how to live it, you’ll end up unhappy and dissatisfied.

To your success

 

Michael W

Michael W

 

P.S. If you are looking for a confidence program that can help you with your self development. Send me an email at michael@youaresuccesslifecoach.com to request a copy of my “Maximum Confidence Transformation Package”. Afterwards we can arrange a discovery telephone call to discuss the package and how you can benefit further from developing your confidence level.

Feature photo used under CCO and available at https://pixabay.com/en/woman-job-task-move-monitor-pose-2685460/