Categories
Archives
Search
Subscribe to Our Monthly Digest
2012: Find and cultivate your sweet spot
My mother is 87 years old, and I don’t ever recall her using the word “goal”. If I were to ask her what her vision was, she would probably say, “20/20”. Here is what I can say about Mom: She has many friends, and serving others comes naturally. She is one of those folks who, after talking to her, genuinely and sincerely makes you feel like the greatest person in the world. People love to be around her, and her positive attitude is infectious. To this day, she has many, many friends, and the list is still growing. She is my favorite example of a successful life.
So how about the rest of us? How do we discover what we are uniquely suited to do? It is hard to cultivate our rarity if we don’t know what it is. Here is an exercise that may help: These are eight characteristics that can help us find our “true north”. They were put together by veteran author and speaker Brian Tracy:
- You will always be the best at something that you love to do. If you could afford it, you would do it without pay. It brings out the very best in you, and you get a tremendous amount of satisfaction and enjoyment when you are engaged in that particular work.
- You do it well. You seem to have a natural ability to perform in that area.
- This talent has been responsible for most of your success and happiness in life up to now. From an early age, it is something you enjoyed to do and you got the greatest rewards and compliments from other people.
- It is something that was easy for you to learn, and easy to do. In fact, it was so easy to do, you forgot when and how you learned it. You just found yourself doing it easy and well one day.
- It holds your attention. It absorbs you and fascinates you. You like to read about it, talk about it, and learn about it. It seems to attract you like a moth to a flame.
- You love to learn about it, and become better at it all your life. You have a deep inner desire to really excel in this particular area.
- When you do what you are ideally suited to do, time stands still. You can often work in your area of special talent for long periods without eating or sleeping hour after hour because you get so involved in it.
- You really admire and respect other people who are good at what you are most suited to do. You want to be like them and be around them, and emulate them in every way.
So dig in, and have fun in your discoveries!