Success Factors: Finding "what" - Tools and Techniques

Finding "what" - Tools and Techniques

In my last post, I told my story of how I figured out my "what". Many of you who read the post, might say, how does it help me. Well the purpose of the post was to help you reflect upon your experiences and see if that helps to find your goal.

I very well understand that everyone doesn’t have a same story. My this post is to help you figure out your "what". I will provide certain tools and techniques that you can use that will help you to go further in life.

To start with, I would suggest you to determine and understand your personality, strengths and social/communication style.

There are many tools and workshops available in the market which will help you. There is no real sequence to it but I would suggest the sequence which I feel works the best. You may change the sequence if you want.

1. MBTI (Personality Type)
2. Social Styles (social/communication style)
3. Strengths Finder 2.0 (your natural talent)

First step would be to determine your personality type.

The most famous personality assessment test is Myers-Briggs Type Indicator know as MBTI. This is the assessment of your personality based on your preferences. They have classified 16 different personality types based on different preferences.

There are many online and offline versions of assessment. You can take a free test here. For more detailed explanation and understanding you may want to take paid 1-2 day workshop. There are many institutes who conduct these.

This test is a very good reflection of how your preferences are making you who you are. Also why some activities are very easy for you and some are not. Why you avoid certain things\interactions and you love to have others. Why do you behave the way you do.

Second step is to find out your social style.

This is very similar to MBTI but this is not personality type. This is more of social communication style. This is more simpler than MBTI, it has only 4 styles. And these types are based on your approach. Is your approach task oriented or people oriented, is your communication direct or indirect.

The assessment is very similar to MBTI, you will have to answer few questions based on your natural preference. Based on the answer, your style will be determined. This understanding is very important part of the interpersonal awareness. This will help you understand your social behavior and also help you determine other person's social behavior. Based on the other person's style you can adapt your communication style to get more effective results.

And the third one is the strengths finder book and workshop.

There is a book called strengths finder 2.0 this is one of the best sellers on WSJ. This book is a result of huge research done by Gallup. They have conducted a study for 40 years and have come up with 34 most common talents.

There are two parts to this book, First one, there is a online test to determine your top 5 strengths and second part is explanation of the 34 different talents. This is one of the most useful tools to find out what your natural strengths and talents are.

There are 2 ways to achieve your goals

1. The path of least resistance, strengthen your strengths to conquer your goal.
2. The path of highest resistance, work on your weakness to make them your strength.

If you believe in the first one, this book is for you. There are few institutes who will conduct the workshops to help to understand the process and results as well. 

Hope these tools will help you go further in your life and career, it definitely helped me.

Note: One of the rule for self-assessment is select the answer for "what you prefer/do/are" and do not select "what you would like to do".

Disclaimer: I am not associated with any of the above mentioned books or organizations and I have no vested or direct interest in them.
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