Many times in your life, you’re looking for ways to improve.  #YouDeserveThis – start with where you naturally excel – your talents.  When you start with your talents, you’re more likely to achieve excellence because you’re working within the framework of your Strengths.  In my StrenthsQuest book, I read the “Five Truths That Great Learners, Educators, and Leaders Know About Excellence” and am using this as the framework for future planning.

Use Your Talents.  Our talents hold the key to excellence.  Work within areas where you excel and you’ll move closer to achieving the results you want.

Hard Work Matters Too. Ever seen those people who seem to be great at everything or really excellent in key areas? Sure, natural talent plays a part of this – but so does practice and hard work.  When you work every day to improve, you notice that you do start to improve.

Clear Direction Helps You Move Forward. If you have a clear picture of what you want to achieve, you’ll be more likely to reach your goals.  You may not know how you’re going to get there, but understanding the end result makes it easier to get there (not easy, easier). Excellence requires that you have a clear idea about what excellence is, what it looks like and what is required to reach it.

Focus matters. Focusing on one area of talent at a time is the best route to excellence, if you try to do too many things at once – you’ll become ineffective in all of them.  Prioritize to make yourself more effective.

Your Unique Blend of Strengths Helps You Achieve Excellence.  It’s important to realize that many talents working together are necessary to produce excellence. When you understand your strengths, you know when to use each strength to help you achieve your results and you become more effective and more excellent.