Achieve

by Chris Friesen

  Now imagine that a member of your family stood up and gave a speech about you and your life. This could be your significant other, child, parent, or sibling. They are talking about the story of your life, how you were as a child, teenager, and adult. They are describing your accomplishments and setbacks and how you dealt with them. They are especially talking about what you were like as a person. What you did with your time. How you treated others. What was important to you.

  Imagine and then write down exactly what you would like them to be saying about you and your life. Be detailed here. Just let the ideas flow. Imagine this as vividly as possible and fill in the form below:

  1. Who is the family member?

  2. What are they saying about your accomplishments?

  3. What are they saying about your setbacks and how you dealt with them?

  4. What are they saying about what you were like as a person?

  5. What are they saying about how you spent your time?

  6. What are they saying about how you treated others?

  7. What are they saying about what was important to you?

  8. What are they saying about your legacy?

  Now, do this same exercise again, but this time one of your peers, teammates, or colleagues is giving the speech. Imagine this as vividly as possible and fill in the form below:

  1. Who is this peer, teammate, or colleague?

  2. What are they saying about your accomplishments?

  3. What are they saying about your setbacks and how you dealt with them?

  4. What are they saying about what you were like as a person?

  5. What are they saying about how you spent your time?

  6. What are they saying about how you treated others?

  7. What are they saying about what was important to you?

  8. What are they saying about your legacy?

  If you took this exercise seriously and did it properly, you should have felt some strong emotions. It should also help get you into the right mindset to get in touch with what is really important to you. It should give you some perspective on things, what you need to change, what you need to do more of, and what your true values are.

  If you took this exercise seriously, you also may have noticed that some of the things that you thought were really important to you didn’t come up. Maybe making a million dollars didn’t come up. Or you may be realizing that how you’re currently spending your time and energy is not congruent with what you just learned about yourself doing the exercise above. This is important information that you need to keep in mind as you complete the rest of the exercises in this book.

  Values Survey

  The next exercise is another way to help you get in touch with your deepest values in terms of what is most important to you as a person. I developed this measure based on my own experience working with high achievers and in consultation with the work and measures developed by others.36

  Clarifying your values will help make sure you’re living your life and setting goals congruent with what is most important to you. Too many of us go through life without serious thought about our values and whether we’re living our lives congruent with these values.

  Visit FriesenPerformance.com/Achieve-Bonus-Materials to download printable copies of the Values Survey.

  Values Survey Instructions:

  The goal of this exercise is to help you clarify what is important to you.

  There are no right or wrong answers.

  First read through the list of values below without marking any of the values.

  Read through a second time. This time circle your top 5 to 10 values. There is no need to rank or order these, unless you feel it would be helpful.

  You may find it hard to decide which values to choose. Many of these values are desirable. Think about what is important to you or what you would like to be guiding values in your life. Based on what you learned about yourself from the Funeral Exercise, you can also think about what values you believe will be important to you in the future.

  Some of the values have multiple descriptors. You don’t have to value all of them.

  These are for you and you only. So be as honest with yourself as you can.

  If there are values that are important to you but are not listed, write them down in the Other option at the bottom. The list below is not exhaustive. There are many other types of values not included.

  Independence/Self-Direction/Freedom

  Fun/Pleasure/Stimulation/Play

  Having/Searching for a Larger Meaning

  Leaving a Legacy for Future Generations

  Harmonious Social Relationships

  Being Kind/Friendly/ Helpful/Supportive

  Contributing/Giving Back

  Social Justice/Fairness

  Hard Work/Industriousness/ Persistence/Productivity

  Success/Accomplishment/ Achievement

  Learning/Growing/Improving

  Peace/Quiet

  Self-Expression

  Activity/Intensity/Energy

  Skepticism/Keeping the World Accountable

  Honesty/Authenticity

  Competition/Winning

  Status/RecognitionPrestige

  Influencing Others

  Adventure/Excitement

  Health/Fitness

  Courage/Bravery

  Loyalty/Trustworthiness

  Creativity

  Art/Beauty

  Personal Safety/Security/Stability

  Regional/National Security/Stability

  Spirituality

  Tradition

  Family

  Luxury

  Wealth/Money

  Protecting the Environment

  Nature

  Inner Calm

  Wisdom/Knowledge

  Other:_____________

  Other:_____________

  Other:_____________

  Now, look back at your top 5 to 10 values that you circled. Look at one value at a time. For each one, ask yourself:

  Am I living my life in line with these values?

  If your answer is “yes,” then great! Keep up the great work.

  If your answer is “no” or “sort of”, you need to take a look at your priorities.

  Keep in mind, you don’t have to be living congruent with your values every day or even every month. You may highly value Art/Beauty but have little time to engage this value due to the fact that other values are taking priority at this point in your life. So you may have a start-up and are working long hours trying to get your product ready for launch next month. Even though you value Art/Beauty, you choose to put this value to the side for now. There’s nothing wrong with that. The key is to be aware that you are doing it and then freely choose to do so.

  On the other hand, you may highly value Health/Fitness and realize that for the past year, you’ve been too busy to engage in any health-enhancing activities. Maybe you’ve stopped working out or almost exclusively eat fast food. You should ask yourself if you need to make some changes to your priorities. Living your life incongruent with your values for long periods of time can lead to unhappiness, stress, and under-performance.

  Because our values change over time, it’s important to complete this measure about once a year. Mark it on your calendar. Most people find it easiest to do this in early January of each year. Start off each year fresh and in line with what’s most important to you.

  Conclusion

  You now have a better understanding of your Basic Personality Tendencies and have connected with your basic values. Some of you may feel like you know yourself a lot better now, but are still not sure what you should be doing in terms of your career or life focus. Or you may want to know if the career you’re in or the main focus in your life is right for you. The next step to help figure this out is to get a better sense of your strengths, including your talents, skills, and interests. The next section of this book will systematically help you clarify these to ensure you are on the right path.

  BONUS MATERIAL
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  Visit FriesenPerformance.com/Achieve-Bonus-Materials to download printable copies of the Values Survey.

  STEP 3

  KNOW YOUR STRENGTHS

  Chapter 11

  Know Your Talents, Skills & Interests

  A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to accomplish his goals.

  ― Larry Bird

  Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.

  ― Steve Jobs

  Now that you’ve gotten in touch with what’s truly important to you, we have to hone in on your strengths, including your talents, skills, and interests. You can’t effectively figure out what you should be focusing on without first knowing your Basic Personality Tendencies and what is truly important to you.

  So if you skimmed over the last chapters without doing any of the exercises, I’m just going to come out and say it. You’re making a mistake. You can’t make and achieve big goals if they aren’t in line with your personality and what is truly important to you.

  The next step in this journey is to get in touch with your strengths and passions. This section focuses on figuring out what you are good at and what really interests you.

  Keep in mind that being good at something doesn’t mean you value the activity or that you’re interested in doing it. I’ve seen this more often than I’d like with high-level athletes. Remember Leroy from Chapter 1? He’s the talented and skilled basketball player who could have made the NBA, but fizzled out. It turned out that he didn’t really value the lifestyle of playing professional basketball and wasn’t really passionate about the game.

  So keep this in mind. Knowing your strengths is important for maximizing your potential. But, if you engage these strengths in career trajectories that are not in line with your personality, values, or interests, you are not going to be happy and effective. The key to success is knowing all of these things about yourself and then making sure you’re doing something that satisfies as many of them as possible.

  Something else to keep in mind is that your personality, values, and interests can also be considered among your strengths. Your talents and skills are more specific, but are strengths as well. Maybe you’re skilled at writing. Or maybe you have a talent for reading people. Knowing this about yourself is imperative to your success.

  Don’t Try This on Your Own!

  We are usually pretty good judges when it comes to our values and interests. But sometimes we are not the best judges of our strengths, talents, and skills. Often we need feedback from others to see them.

  Below is an exercise that many of my clients have found helpful. This exercise helps ensure that you are not discounting anything that you may be blind to when it comes to recognizing your strengths, talents, and skills.

  Contact at least 3 to 5 people that know you well. These can be family members, friends, or colleagues. Ask them to honestly answer the questions below. Instead of asking them over the phone or in person, it’s usually best to have them take their time and write their responses out on paper or via email. That way, they have time to think about their responses and will be more likely to give you honest and valuable feedback.

  In your email, let these people know that you are examining your goals or career options and looking for honest feedback from trusted family, friends, and colleagues. In your email, ask them the following:

  1. What do you see as my strengths, talents, and skills?

  2. What type of work or career do you think I would be best at and why?

  3. Do you think I have strengths, talents, or skills that I may not be aware or? If so, what are they?

  Of course, you shouldn’t change your goals, career plans, or aspirations simply based on what these people say. Like everything in this book, these are just exercises that will help you develop clarity as to what you should be focusing on.

  Discovering Your Strengths: Guided Discovery Exercise

  Once you’ve received feedback from those who know you well, you’re ready to start the Strengths Guided Discovery Exercise. This is a culmination of some of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself to get in touch with your strengths, talents, and skills. There is no scoring key, or right or wrong answers. This should be considered a process exercise, in that taking the time to think deeply about these questions will give you ideas, insights, and new perspectives on yourself and what your strengths, talents, and skills really are.

  Visit FriesenPerformance.com/Achieve-Bonus-Materials to download printable copies of Strengths Guided Discovery Exercise.

  Find a time and place where you can do this without interruption for at least 15 to 30 minutes. Turn off your phone, computer, TV, and put a Do Not Disturb sign on your door if you have to.

  First, take 10 slow and long breaths. To do this, breathe in through your nose for 5 seconds and then blow out through your mouth for another 5 seconds. Don’t take the deepest breaths possible. Rather, take slow and long breaths. Do it slow enough so that you can stretch it over the entire 10 second breath cycle (in and out). You should focus on the act of breathing. This should result in a mental state of calm focus and help clear your mind before you begin.

  Now write down your responses to the following questions:

  1. Throughout your schooling, which classes/subjects did you do best in?

  2. What was it about the classes/subjects that you enjoyed?

  3. Throughout your schooling, which classes/subjects did you struggle with?

  4. What was it about the classes/subjects that caused you to struggle?

  5. What types of groups or work settings do you feel you fit into best?

  6. What groups or work settings do you feel you fit into the least?

  7. What activities make you feel like time is moving by slowly and painfully?

  8. What kinds of activities give you the feeling of being in the zone (e.g., when you don’t notice time and it seems to fly by)?

  9. In what activities do you feel most like yourself, when it feels natural to be doing what you’re doing?

  10. What activities lead you to feel exhausted or tired relatively quickly? (Think more about stress and mental energy as opposed to physically draining activities like housework)

  11. What activities can you do without noticing fatigue? When it feels effortless?

  12. What do you do better than anything else?

  13. Do you have any strengths, talents, or skills you haven’t developed but wished you had?

  14. Do you have any strengths, talents, or skills you were discouraged from developing?

  15. Which strengths, talents, or skills do you think you could really develop if you tried?

  16. What do you feel your natural strengths, talents, or skills are?

  Once you’ve done this exercise, ask yourself:

  What did I learn about myself and my strengths, talents, and skills?

  Is there any way to tie in what I discovered in this process with what I am currently focusing on in my life?

  Is there any way to tie in what I discovered in this process with what I can focus on in the future?

  Is there some action I can take to look into the possibility of incorporating more of these strengths, talents, and skills into my current focus or future focus?

  Now put it away for at least a full day. Then come back to what you wrote and follow the breathing instructions again. Review what you’ve written and see what kind of reactions you get when you read it for the second time. Note any new insights or ideas.

  Know Your Interests

  Your interests tell you what subjects, activities, or careers you’re interested in. If you are looking to change career paths or figure out your career path, then all the ex
ercises in this book are essential. If you are unsure about what you are passionate about, then there are a few more steps you can take to help you develop a clearer picture of what you should do.

  If you’re an elite or professional athlete, you may think that you should skip this section. Please don’t. It’s never too early to start thinking about what you want to do when your career ends. Doing this work will help you open your mind to various possibilities. If you know yourself well and have an idea of what you want to do in the future, then your mind will be primed for opportunities and experiences that may help you along your path.

  If you’re already working in a career that you are sure is well-suited to you in terms of your personality, values, strengths, and interests, then you may want to skip this section.

  If you aren’t quite satisfied with your current career, are considering a career change, or are just interested in learning more about your career interests, then the exercises below will help you.

  When it comes to figuring out what you should be doing as a career, you may want to take a step back to make sure your goals are realistic. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for dreaming big. But if you are a 25-year-old mediocre basketball player who is only 4-foot-11, I think we need to get realistic and realize that a career as an NBA guard is out of the question.

  Then again, if you really love basketball, are high in Extraversion and love talking to anyone that will listen to you about basketball, then you might channel that passion into something like your own podcast where you interview people and talk about everything related to basketball. Then the sky is the limit for you.

  What About IQ?

  Of course, we have to be realistic as the previous example highlights. But some people think they aren’t smart enough to go into certain careers. Of course, one’s intelligence is important. It has been found to be related to many important educational, occupational, economic, and social outcomes.