They’re Quietly Admiring You: Why Your Strengths Are Rarer Than You Think
I have this conversation with almost every client, without fail, the moment we start working on their strengths.
The pattern is always the same. They fixate on everything someone else does brilliantly: the colleague who presents like a natural, the friend who seems to have their life all planned out, the peer who always gets promoted.
Meanwhile, they’re blind to something else.
Other people are quietly admiring them.
The Thing You Do Without Thinking
Think about something you do with such natural ease that you barely notice it. You make sense of a messy situation, calm a tense room, spot what’s coming three steps ahead, or get things done while everyone else is still discussing it.
It feels effortless to you, so you assume it’s no big deal.
You assume everyone can do it.
They can’t.
That’s the blind spot. Because you’ve lived with your talents all your life, you assume everyone thinks, behaves and feels the way you do. So you discount what comes easily and put the people who do the other things on a pedestal. I was the last person to see this about myself. I assumed everyone thought the way I did.
You’re Comparing Apples and Bananas
Here’s the problem with comparing yourself to someone else: you’re not measuring like with like.
Their strengths are not your strengths. The things see them doing brilliantly, are usually the things that don’t come naturally to you, and that’s fine. The same is true in reverse. Measuring yourself against their strengths is like judging an apple for failing to be a banana.
It’s a complete waste of time, and a tiring exercise.
Every minute spent envying someone else’s talents is a minute not spent developing your own.
One in 33 Million
Here’s what I tell every client, and it's true. Your strengths, and the exact way you combine them, are unique to you.
Gallup’s research puts the odds at roughly 1 in 33 million that someone else shares your specific top 5 strengths in your exact order. One in 33 million. That’s not just different, it’s extraordinary.
So the question is how many people you’d have to line up before you found someone with the combination that you have. Nobody else is carrying what you’ve got.
You Can’t Develop What You Don’t Know You Have
This is where it gets practical.
Most people I coach are unaware of about half of their top 10 talents. They’ve never been named, so they’ve never been developed on purpose.
When you know what yours are, three things tend to shift:
You’re more confident in the value you bring.
You step forward more readily when you know your strengths can add something.
You stop comparing and start building on what you’re already great at.
You can aim knowledge, skills and experience at your strengths and keep developing them, to a level that would surprise you.
But you can’t do that until you know what they are.
Start Leveraging What You’ve Actually Got
That’s where the real magic happens, and it matters most when you’re working out a career change. If you’re sitting at a crossroads wondering what you’re “meant” to do, the answer usually isn’t found by looking at what everyone else is doing. It starts with knowing what you do naturally well, then aiming it somewhere that uses it every day.
So here’s your challenge this week. Notice one thing you do with ease that other people find hard. Write it down. Then ask yourself: where could I be using more of this?
If you’d like help finding out what you’re brilliant at and putting it to work, I’d love to chat. Book a free Career Strategy Chat.
Binny
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