Leverage Your Strengths to Crush

Jenny Balliet
Lula & CO
Published in
4 min readMar 18, 2020

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01-Coaching Playbook You Do You

01-Coaching Playbook- @Lulaeducate

You Be You

This article is a bit more wordy than the others. I apologize. I will outline it for you. Resource: ViaCharacter.org; cost free. See also Coordinating Article on Value

RESEARCH SAYS IF YOU DO SOMETHING YOU ARE GOOD AT YOU WILL BE HAPPY MORE

Moreover, research also has found that the difference between someone that is unhappy and happy may lie in their perception. That sounds strange, right? Crazy enough, there is research to back this up. [1] We all have different strengths. This is what makes us all unique. Not to be overly flowery, but you get the picture. Perhaps you did not know that strengths impact everything you do. If you understand your strengths, and you then set up your day to leverage those strengths using simple tactics that I will discuss later, you will feel much less like you are working or learning and more like you are playing, investigating or simply being. [2][3] Click here it is free.

Strengths, What Evs…

This is one of the things I assist my clients with of all ages. Let’s say they are having trouble writing. I find a way that they love to write. Then, we can see their true skills. I am different than a teacher or tutor I help you find your zen or happy place. If you have questions, DM me, I will help you.

STRENGTHS: A Relay Race of Water

Let’s say you. needed to fill a bucket in a relay race, and you had a choice. You could either fill it with full bottles or empty? no brainer, what would you choose, the full, right?

RED + BLUE

Let’s change this. What if you had to fill a bucket of purple water? Red + Blue makes Purple.

Here is the catch,

  1. You could fill it with purple water (Weaknesses) but, the purple water is only 1/4 full in each bottle. Or
  2. You cold fill it with the red & blue water (strengths). These are 3/4 full each.

What would you do?

It would probably make sense to grab the 3/4 full bottles of each color, right?

This is the logic I use when I match people up or create teams when I work with companies. I find companies that are complementary in their strengths and then match them up so they can each work on what they are good at. It is called Jigsaw methodology. [3] Everyone has a place of value. I have also referred to it as the end of professional dilution.

STRENGTHS ONLY: Just Bee Happy! What I would love to say:

Dear Students,

I am so very sorry our educational system is built on tests and has removed most of the inspiration from learning. It is very unfortunate that education, largely speaking, devalue your individual worth for a meaningless score that has little reflection of your potential contribution to society. Most of your teachers likely feel the same, they simply cannot state that for professional reasons.

Hopefully, one day, you will solve this. In the meantime, please see my favorite resource.

“[Our] educational system is built on frustratingly narrow pursuits.”

Learning is difficult. Adults sometimes forget the difficulty, but every once and a while, when they have a new software to deploy, text to understand, or form/process to submit, they remember, in other cases we just need to remind them.

Strengths Are Your Superpowers!!

Strengths are a key to unlocking happiness. Think if you always had to do what you were terrible at, how would that make you feel? Pretty lousy, correct?

When I taught, I noticed that when my students were frustrated because the topic was very difficult for them to understand they became irritable. But, when they would repeatedly try the same thing they generally understood well, they had far more frustration tolerance, the time between when they would, ‘rage quit.’

Not rocket science, I know. Therefore, If you want to always feel like you are doing well, and in turn, likely being happier, take the strengths finder. I recommend the children’s version. I do not recommend the adult version, I have taken both, and I am an adult. But, you take what you like.

Think if you always were able to do what you were awesome at, how would that make you feel?

Just like David….

Resources Consulted

[1]https://www.viacharacter.org/survey/account/register#youth

[2]http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/117035/chapters/The_Urgent_Need_for_a_Strengths-Based_Approach.aspx

[3] https://www.jigsaw.org/

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQhuLQTuGko

[5]https://georgecouros.ca/blog/archives/tag/strengths-based-learning

[6] https://youtu.be/mZedcQoY0iw

[7] https://medium.com/mined-blocked/bait-that-hook-just-add-value-6f33f6fd6bcf

[8] https://evada-assets.global.ssl.fastly.net/76d1ea39-a4eb-4270-b9dc-899653415f8f/assets/Strengths%20by%20Virtue.pdf

Taken from ViaCharacter.org [8]

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Jenny Balliet
Lula & CO

Frmr. Dir. of Presentations, Athena.Trade | E Media Group | Educator|ADD/ADHD Coach |M.Ed. |Writer | MLAW |Founder of MinED & Lula & CO|Mom (14yo Gmer./Writer)