Do you know what your core abilities or capabilities are? Do you have a clear idea of what you can do well and what you need to improve? Do you get consistent feedback from others that matches your self-assessment? If you answered no to any of these questions, you are not alone. Many of us struggle to identify and evaluate our strengths and weaknesses, and to use them to our advantage. In this blog post, I will share how I have learned to discover and measure my core abilities or capabilities from two perspectives: honest self-reflection and feedback from others.
Honest Self-Reflection: This involves being brutally honest with myself about what I can do well and what I have achieved. I can assess my abilities or capabilities by reflecting on the goals that I have set and accomplished in my life and what I have used to achieve them. I can see if there is a consistent pattern in the process and label it as an ability or capability. For example, I believe I have great leadership skills because I have been in positions of leadership in the past where I set a goal for the team and we accomplished it with little friction. I have used my communication, motivation, and delegation skills to lead the team effectively.
Feedback from Others: This involves listening to what others say about me and my abilities or capabilities. This can help me to address blind spots and illusions. Blind spots are areas that I cannot properly assess because I am unaware of them. Illusions are beliefs that I have about myself that are not true. Feedback from those who surround me and interact with me regularly can provide me with a mechanism to correct both blind spots and illusions. For example, some people have told me that I am good at teaching and imparting knowledge. I am conflicted because I have not set a goal in the past to teach someone something and measure their knowledge of it to see if I have really taught them.
Who is Right? Me or Others?
When others praise me for my ability to do something very well, I realized that it stems from a comparison; they compare my ability to some reference point in their own lives. When I critique my ability, I do the same by comparing it to some reference point in my own life. If my standard is higher than most people, I might insist that I don’t have a talent, capability, or ability for something even if others say I do.
So, no one is wrong. It is a difference in standard.
The ultimate confidence comes when what I believe about myself aligns with the feedback from others. For example, I am confident in my leadership skills because I have evidence from my own experience and from the feedback of others that I have led teams successfully.
In conclusion, identifying and assessing our core abilities or capabilities is not an easy task. It requires honest self-reflection and feedback from others. It also involves comparing ourselves to different standards and expectations. However, it is a worthwhile endeavor, as it can help us to improve our confidence, performance, and satisfaction in our personal and professional lives. The key is to find a balance between our own perception and the perception of others, and to use both as sources of learning and growth.
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