Invest to give your best

As coalition leaders, we can easily spend all of our time on meetings, projects, reports, plans, budgets and addressing other people’s needs that we rarely find any time to pause, reflect or rest. And we definitely do not have time to invest in ourselves. When we do invest in ourselves, we often focus on improving areas of weakness or challenges rather than areas of strength. While this may help us slightly improve, is this really where we want to spend our time and is it the best investment of time? Over the past few months, I have been on a journey trying to decide how and where to spend my time and have had some “aha” moments related to time investment that I wanted to share. Join me this week as I share three reasons why investing in your strengths will help you give your best.

Renews your energy

Although coalition work can be rewarding, it can also be really exhausting and lead to weariness and burnout.When you take the time to invest in yourself in areas of strength, you have an opportunity to be energized and refreshed. This Spring, I had an opportunity to take Priya Parker’s Art of Gathering online course. Although I have been gathering coalitions for almost 20 years and facilitating groups for longer, I was impressed with her work and thought it would be an opportunity to expand and enhance my strengths. This was one of the BEST decisions I have made in years investing in myself. Although I kept thinking I should spend time learning some new research method, I decided instead to invest more in my area of strength. As a result, I was able to enhance my skills and have renewed energy and excitement about facilitating and gathering groups of people.

Brings out your best

When you invest in your strengths, you can become the best version of yourself! Last fall, I participated in my first official “StrengthsFinder” assessment and the premise behind this approach is to really enhance work in your strengths rather than spend lots of time improving your areas of weakness. We all have a unique combination of strengths and when we understand our strengths and utilize our strengths, we are more truly “us” than we would be if we try to compensate for all of the things we do not do well or do not enjoy doing.

Benefits your coalition

When each of us invest time and enhance our areas of strength, everyone wins. When you are leading with energy and the best version of yourself, your coalition (and your family, friends, community) also benefit. If each of us spends more of our time – and takes time to invest our time – in areas of strength, our coalition has a beautiful collection of collaboration where we can all give our best.

So, what about you? What are you going to do this week to consider how to invest in your strengths?

If you would like additional support to help with finding time to invest in your strengths, check out my free resource, Escape the Overwhelm: 7 Practical actions to find balance in your work.