The Uniqueness of You

by Pamelagrace Beatty

How often have you spent time trying to increase your skills in an area that you are weak in?  How often has someone at school, work or even home said, “You aren’t very good at this, so we are going to have you do it over and over again until you get good at it.  In this discussion they either don’t acknowledge what you are good at or they simply dismiss it.  So, you get to work really hard on your weak areas. You struggle and push to get better in that area. It takes forever and rarely, after achieving what you were working on, are you happy. 

I have always been a Big Picture person. At work I always wanted to know the Big Picture before getting into the “nitty gritty” of the work.  Once I knew the big picture, I knew how to perceive the details, where they were important and why. Also, I thought in Big Picture format. I liked to envision the outcome down the line.  You could say I was a kind of visionary.  I preferred not to get stuck in the details or minutia of a project or idea.  Dealing with the details while envisioning the big picture stole my creativity away. I liked to see the end product first and then go back and fill in the details.  It was a strength of mine.  That strength was not always appreciated on my jobs.

A smart leader recognizes the strengths of their team and uses them.  In football it doesn’t make sense to make a linebacker a quarterback. A different set of skills and strength is required to do either of those jobs.  But rarely do you get to have the experience of working in your strengths on most jobs. What that does is make whatever you are doing, that isn’t your strength, very hard to accomplish.  You spend far more energy working on the things you dislike versus working on the things you enjoy.  Think about it.  When was the last time you worked so hard and long on something that time flew by and you didn’t even notice it?  You were so involved, so caught up that time, maybe food, or even people were unimportant.  That means you were working in your passion.

Once we retire, we now have the opportunity to do what we always wanted to do. Truth is, we can work in our passion before we retire but we don’t because we have been so afraid we would fail, or we wouldn’t make enough money doing what we love.  For example, I wanted to be a dancer or an artist. “Starving Artist” was all I heard about.  Waiting tables in New York while hoping for that big break that would get me on Broadway would be my fate as a dancer.  On top of that, I was convinced that I wasn’t good enough as an artist or dancer to succeed. So, I took a “normal” job and became a flight attendant and then settled into Human Resources for the rest of my working life. But my passion remained with dance and art.

 Of course, to work in our passion means we have to know what our passion is. Although I am using the word “work” this doesn’t just pertain to working for a living but anything we actually do. It could also mean a hobby or a task like cleaning the house or cooking. The point is, we all have things we are very good at and rarely do we give ourselves the credit we deserve for those talents or skills and rarely do we leverage them like we could.

For much of my career, most of my sage managers have pointed out my weaknesses and encouraged or required me to improve in those areas. Few took advantage of my strengths and used them to the max, and when they did, I was pretty happy.  I mentioned I am a Big Picture person.  I was a volunteer for an important program that worked with children. I had several ideas for improving the longevity of the volunteer group which was essential to that program.  The volunteers literally did the work that others were paid for at times and the work was very important, so keeping the volunteers was important as well. I shared my thoughts about improving volunteer longevity with the director of the program.  She asked me to write up a proposal and present it to her staff!!  Frankly, I was surprised. I thought if she agreed with the ideas, she would just take the project and run with it, as often happened with my ideas in the past.  She didn’t.  She supported my ideas and hired me to design and manage the program. When the money ran out for paying me, I took it on as a volunteer project because I felt it was so important AND I was working in an area I was passionate about.

That manager has remained the dearest to me of all I have worked for.  It felt wonderful to have my strengths recognized and supported. It was also important however, for me to know what my capabilities were and to trust myself.  Three years later, that program is still going.

We all have strengths or gifts that are unique to us. We may not know what someone else knows, nor be able to do what someone else can do, but there are talents that are unique to us and it is up to us to know and make use of them.  By doing so, we create a better experience for ourselves in the world.  And even better than that, we can create something that benefits those beyond us.  So, trust your passions and find positive ways to bring them into the world.  That passion doesn’t have to be so big it saves the world.  But living in your passion might save you!