Determining Your Hidden Skills

Our November meeting was fun!

Suzy Drapkin, founder of Career Achievers, discussed ways for us to recognize skills that we don't even realize that we have. We all have them, but they're "hidden". They are skills that we don't even know are there.

A great exercise that helped us identify our hidden skills was to list 5-10 positive experiences from our past. They can be experiences from our work, social life, childhood, volunteerism, etc. Any experience from the past that has the following three criteria:

1. The experience was something in which YOU were responsible for doing something or making something happen.
2. The experience was enjoyable. It made you feel good when completed.
3. The results were positive. You felt that you did it well, and you were proud of the outcome. (NOTE: It does not matter how anyone else perceived the activity, only that YOUR feelings about it were positive.)

Take your time in thinking about and choosing the experiences from your past. Be willing to put it aside and come back to it later, if necessary. Then, share your experiences with a buddy. Explain details about the experience like what was involved in making it happen, and why you have a positive feeling about the experience. Now, let your buddy point out to you the hidden skills that they recognize in you, based on the discussion about those experiences.

To continue with this exercise, let's recognize which of the newly acknowledged skills we should try to incorporate into our daily work life....

Apply the skills, which your buddy listed for you, into three categories:

1. Enjoy doing the skill
2. Willing to do the skill
3. Want to avoid doing the skill in the future

Look at the "Enjoy doing the skill" category and prioritize each skill, in order, based on how much you want to use that skill in your career.

Now, also apply those skills to skill patterns: working with things, working with data, working outdoors, analytical, creative, service and leadership.

Based on the number of skills in each pattern, which pattern is strongest for you?

This exercise can be very helpful in gaining new insight into your career direction!

As a bonus topic, Suzy also discussed decision making steps with us.

Many of us get overwhelmed by making decisions (stay tuned for our January meeting topic!), so it was very helpful for Suzy to break it down for us.

How should we approach decisions? Just follow these steps...

• Identify the decision
• Gather information

- about yourself (your wants, needs, capabilities, etc.)

- about the situation (facts about the job market, a specific company, a specific career field, etc.)

• Identify options (List ALL possibilities. Even if they don't seem possible, at first. Ask a friend for help in seeing options that may not be obvious to you.)
• Identify pros and cons of each option.
• Choose an option
• Make a plan and take action
• Review the decision (Did that solve the problem, or should you try another option?)

Important: We must all be willing to choose the wrong option sometimes! Practice makes perfect. The only way to find the right decision, is to experience a few wrong ones. Please don't be afraid to make mistakes. Doing so will keep you stuck and unable to make any decisions at all.

All my best to you in making progress in your career transition!

Don't take this stuff lightly! The Career Transitions Group believes that life is about more than just getting a paycheck. Find the work you were meant to do, and the rewards will be infinite!

Until we meet again in January...

Happy Holidays!