Often, when my career coaching clients start working with me, they tell me that one of the things they hope to receive from our work together is a clearer understanding of their strengths and an easier time communicating their gifts to future employers and clients.
My clients are often successful, talented leaders who’ve accomplished important things in their careers.
And yet, they struggle with self-doubt, low self-confidence, and a lack of words when asked about the gifts they bring.
Identifying our strengths, skills, and gifts is challenging for many people. Here’s part of why that is—
Many of us—especially those of us socialized as women—were raised to believe that celebrating our accomplishments was somehow wrong, that if we shared our successes with others, we were conceited or self-centered or at risk of harming others.
We learned to make ourselves small in order to make others comfortable.
As a result of this socialization, you may have a hard time identifying your strengths, feel awkward talking about your successes, or downplay compliments with statements like, “oh, that’s no big deal, I still need to work on these three other things.”
It can be so scary to stand out that receiving compliments or appreciation makes some people nauseous.
But if you shy away from celebrating who you are, your view of yourself can become warped.
You might have a harder time understanding the difference you’re called to make, translating your gifts into paid work, showing up confidently in job interviews, or sharing your message with a larger audience.
If you struggle with self-appreciation, I invite you to ask yourself this question—
When you give someone a gift, do you want them to frown, ignore you, or say it’s nothing special?
Or would you prefer that they receive your gift with a smile and a thank you?
The latter, right?
I imagine that life feels the same way.
I believe that our strengths, skills, and talents are gifts that life has entrusted to us, whether through hard work, heartache, luck, study, experience, or the act of being born.
I believe that we each have a responsibility to reciprocate by giving thanks for our gifts and sharing them with the world.
As Potowatomi botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer writes in Braiding Sweetgrass—“Isn’t this the purpose of education, to learn the nature of your own gifts and how to use them for good in the world?”
And as yoga teacher and anti-racism consultant, Michelle Cassandra Johnson, writes in Finding Refuge, “It is important to think of oneself as a medicine maker, because each one of us has a gift to offer the collective.”
Self-appreciation is not conceit.
Self-appreciation is the skill of giving thanks for who we get to be in this life.
When we shine light on our gifts, we become clearer about how to share them with the world.
With that in mind, I invite you to grab some paper and a pen and write your responses to the following questions about your strengths, skills, and gifts now.
As you go, if part of you has a hard time with this exercise, please offer that part some warmth and kindness. It might also help to recall people who helped you develop your strengths, sending them appreciation as well.
- When do you feel so wholly immersed in the moment that time seems transformed and nothing else seems to matter?
- What are you doing when you experience an intense sense of joyful alignment—as if your heart, heart, and body are in sync with each other, like you were doing exactly what you were called to be doing?
- What challenges have given you gifts that you long to use to help others?
- What skills, strengths, talents, or knowledge are you most proud of?
- What comes to you so naturally that you hardly think of it as a skill?
When you’re complete, look over your list and highlight key threads.
If you have a hard time recognizing your strengths or want greater insight into aspects of yourself you might not yet be able to see, I encourage you to ask a trusted friend or two to answer the questions above for you.
And, from now on, I challenge you to catch yourself in the act of using your strengths and gifts and play with taking in just a teaspoon more of self-appreciation.
If you received a new insight from this article and would love to receive more support to appreciate your own gifts and share them with the world, I invite you to subscribe to my Love Letters to Changemakers.
They’re free, weekly emails with morsels of guidance and nourishment that I glean from my coaching sessions, like the ones in this article.
To learn more and subscribe, click here—Love Letters to Changemakers. I hope you will join me and enjoy!