Strengths

By Doug Franklin November 6, 2009

I love to create ideas that lead to resources for youth workers; I hate to write resources for youth workers. Understanding this about me has brought me so much joy and excitement. See, I used to think that I had to be like those others youth ministry guys who wrote their own material, so I would slave away at my computer trying to kick out a few words and hating every minute of it.  Now I sit in a meeting with four other great people at LeaderTreks and share my ideas and they take it and make great resources out of my ideas. This is the cool part; they love to write and find great joy in it.

When we work in our strengths work = joy. How do you do this? Start by reading Strengthfinders 2.0, and when you have finished do the following activity.

Write on a piece of paper everything you do for your job. Make the list down the middle of the page. Then are the right side of the list put a check by everything you do that is within your strengths and brings you joy. When you are finished look at all the activities that don’t fit your strengths and try and find other people in your organization, including volunteers who will do that work for you. You won’t be able to give it all away (I still have to work on insurance issues here at LeaderTreks). Try and find people who’s strengths are the activities you don’t want to do. Try hard to spend 60% -70% of your time working in your strength. It will bring you joy.