Video Games and Strengths
Do you ever play video games? Yea, me neither.
I’ve never really been good at them, but when I have played them, it’s a nice distraction. The best part is when I get to play with my brothers during the holidays. I don’t own any video game consoles, so I always rely on my brothers to bring one to our parents’ when we get together. (The last one I personally owned was an Xbox 360. I know, super long ago).
Growing up, and now whenever I DO play a video game, my default has always been to choose the “well-rounded” (aka balanced) character. I always end up getting frustrated because the character is a master of none, so there aren’t really any major strengths or weaknesses.
During my education and through the early part of my career, I had always thought being “well-rounded” was a good thing. You could be good at a lot of things, but I quickly grew frustrated, just like I did with my video games.
As humans, we are unique and have different strengths and weaknesses (oops, I mean “opportunities”). The old-school thought that I had grown up with is dying away just like my video game characters always did. We can’t expect people to be “well-rounded”, we have to understand their individual strengths and managed the remaining areas we want to improve.
After my conversation with Kristin A. Sherry, the founder of YouMap, on the Leading People First podcast, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we really need to start leaning into our strengths. Based on Gallup’s research, you, yes YOU, are 1 in 33 million. For context with the global population, your unique set of strengths can only be found in less than a HALF PERCENT (.435%) of people in the WORLD. This makes you, again, yes YOU, incredibly unique.
For myself, my strengths are:
Includer
Restorative
Relator
Harmony
Positivity
When I reviewed my strengths again, the work that I’ve been doing the last 4-5 years suddenly made sense. Working in culture, employee experience, talent development, change management, and DE&I all spoke to my strengths. So why have I been trying to be something I’m not and frustrating myself in the process?
Don’t be a well-balanced video game character. Stop treating yourself like you don’t have strengths and weaknesses. It’s time for us to lean into our abilities fully and make the most of our unique gifts.
Listen to Kristin Sherry on the Leading People First podcast below.
You can connect with Kristin on LinkedIn and check out the YouMap website.
