Tap Your Sweet Strengths
Smoke rising from sugar shacks is one sure sign of spring in Vermont. It signals the production of the luscious liquid gold that drips enticingly from short stacks. I remember as a child waiting for the local farmer to dip the boiling syrup from the vat and hand me the dripping ladle. I can still smell the rich, sticky sweetness and feel my impatience as I blew on the syrup to cool it down. That first taste of spring’s harvest is pure magic: A tonic like no other.
Before being boiled into perfection, sap is the maple’s lifeblood, carrying nutrients from the ground up through the trunk to every branch. Without it the maple is deadwood.
When you tap into your own core, what do you find? What subtle flavors flow from your being? If you boil down that sap, what sweet syrup would you pour into this life? An unbounded creativity? A calm ability to heal? A ferocious demand for justice and peace?
Mary Oliver asks, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Your strengths, the sap tapped from your inner core, are guides to charting a course through “your one wild and precious life.” They energize, revitalize and clarify who you are, giving shape and sturdiness to your work in the world.
Unfortunately, most of us learned to compensate for our limitations rather than build upon our strengths. In our schooling, for example, when you brought home your report card, did your parents focus on the A’s and B’s or that one, lone, ugly D? So often we tell ourselves, “If I could only be better at ___, I’d be successful!” or, “I’ll just keep trying harder.” But can you imagine a maple tree refusing to give sap because it couldn’t produce ketchup?
Building upon inborn strengths is an investment that will never fail you. Doing so creates a livelihood of security in uncertain times. While jobs come and go, your core strengths are with you for a lifetime and will only increase in value as you use them. They are the roots embedded deep into the earth which hold the tree secure: When the winds rise the tree may bend but not break.
There are many ways to discover your strengths. Look at the activities you are drawn to as well as those activities you avoid. Ask friends and relatives where they see you excel personally and professionally. Employ tools for identifying strengths, such as the VIA Signature Strengths assessment at AuthenticHappiness.org (you’ll find it under the engagement heading, about halfway down the page) and the Multiple Intelligences assessment at LiteracyWorks.org.
Tap into your core strengths by identifying peak moments: Times when you’d hit your stride; when life, while perhaps not easy, had a sense of flow or grace. A peak moment may have been as simple as a solo bike ride through the autumn leaves or a dawn paper route when you had the whole world to yourself. It might have been the editorship of the college newspaper where the hours were grueling but the sense of satisfaction was unbeatable. What made it memorable? What skills did you use? What challenges did you face? What problems did you solve?
Harvesting the essential qualities from these peak moments will help you identify what is missing in your current life and where to go looking for deeper satisfaction. Peak moments declare that a strength-based life allows us to live passionately and fully present.
With a list of your unique strengths in hand, take a magnifying glass to your work. Begin to see how and where your curiosity, humor, ability to mediate, collaboration, and love of nature show up. What talents are you expressing, and how often are you expressing them? If you could have more ___, how would that change how you feel about your work? How much energy are you wasting wishing you were what you’re not, rather than celebrating who you are?
If it turns out that you, like many people, are not fully expressing those qualities that bring you deep joy and contentment, then it’s time for a strengths overhaul. In most cases, greater awareness and intention are enough to bring hidden strengths to the forefront. From there real and meaningful actions take place, leading to the changes you desire. In other cases, more drastic measures, even a job change, are needed.
Just as it takes hours of boiling to transform sap from a slightly sweet watery liquid to an explosion of flavor, so it takes time and persistent attention to transform our inborn strengths into powerful tools for living. Choosing one strength to focus on is a great way to begin. Look at ways you currently express this strength, especially ways that may not be obvious. Then take time to imagine other ways this asset could be expressed. Have fun. Invite a friend or colleague to help out, reversing the “brainstorming” roles with each other. Think outside the box.
Next, commit to implementing one change a week. If bringing more collaboration into your work is your goal, examine what projects on your plate could better be accomplished by a team. If creativity is an essential quality that’s been missing, post reminders in key places that ask, “How can I do this task creatively?” This is a great time to bring in a coach to help strategize, to remind you of your commitments and to cheer you on when the going gets tough.
You tap strengths from your inner core. You boil them down by consistently employing them, increasing their intensity and usefulness. And then you taste the sweetest reward of all: You pour out your abilities and talents onto a waiting world. What you have tapped from your inner core, refined through attention and persistent action, becomes an asset of great strength; one that will sustain and support you throughout your life; a steady stream of liquid gold to sweeten your life and the lives of those around you. There’s a short stack out there waiting for the sweet syrup of your life. Go forth and pour!
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Sue Venman is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach with a background in ministry, spiritual direction, and small business management. Through FocalPoint Coaching of Vermont, Sue guides individuals and groups as they clarify their purpose and passion and chart a course marked by increased efficiency, greater confidence and renewed enthusiasm.