Making Your Best Contribution

another IMN solution…
The Super Powers Department –
IMN Global Network–
IMN Field Operative and Featured Writer –
Dale Swinburne

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A Strengths Approach to Discovering your Best Contribution

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Energy.

Where does it come from?
How much does it cost to fill up on?
How can you use it most efficiently?
When is it wasted?

All of these questions have been prominent in the news recently. Of course, they all were in reference to the madly inflating prices of fuel. We all wanted to know how high were the prices going to go? Where could we get the cheapest gas? How can I make my fuel last?

But the more important connotation of these questions would be in reference to the energy we expend every day. The energy it takes to get out of bed, get out the door, get to work, get your work done, get back home, get ready to do it again.

What about that energy? We should be as careful about our personal energy efficiency as we are with our fuel efficiency.

You see, very often we waste the energy that gets us through every day. A strengths based approach to life prevents this. By spending our time and efforts in areas in which we are not talented we spend more energy than we generate. We create an energy deficit. In an effort to improve our weaknesses we spend valuable personal resources with very little results.

How can we become more energy efficient? Research has shown that it usually follows that the things you enjoy doing with your time, those things that really energize you, are usually the things that are allowing you to use your talents the most.

The beauty of it is this, when we are using our strengths we aren’t expending energy but generating it. That’s efficiency. Imagine a car that didn’t just use small amounts of fuel but instead generated fuel. (You conspiracy theorists can argue about whether it would ever make it to market or not.) We have that opportunity though. By spending our time operating in our strengths we are increasing our stores of energy, not depleting them.

Now the skill we need to develop is identifying those things we love doing and what strengths we are utilizing. After we’ve done that we should order our lives around those things that are energy producers and not energy sappers.

The truth of it is not only will you benefit greatly from this approach to your life but so will the people around you. They will be experiencing you at your best. They will be experiencing the best you have to offer this world.

Spend your time trying to improve your weaknesses and not only will you expend large amounts of energy but you will also experience little success.

Spend your time perfecting your strengths and you and everyone around you will experience your very best.

What do you think?
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–> Hear Dale Swinburne as he talks about recovering your energy for leadership at the Human Event/ Feb 6-7, 2009/ Orlando, Fl

–> If you enjoyed this piece, try the companion piece, Where do you get your energy? at Into the Mystic.

–Today’s Post from the IMN’s Super Power Headquarters is brought to you by the Ghost Who Walks, the Phantom: