Re-igniting from burnout

Let's rewind a couple of decades.

Coming out of college, I had a strong sense that I wanted my career to be about bringing people together for a purpose. But there was one problem: I felt like I was really bad at logistics. And logistics, I reasoned, are necessary for bringing people together at a time, in a place, without chaos...

(Have you ever focused your professional development around your perceived weaknesses? You're not alone!)

So I decided to focus a lot of energy on this endeavor. During the first decade of my career, I coordinated multi-day music festivals with numerous venues and bands, and later ran a 3000-person diplomacy conference. Suffice it to say, I got pretty decent at logistics!!

But there was a cost to focusing on my weaker areas. Starting to feel burnt out, I came to a realization: I did NOT want the arc of my career to be planning bigger and bigger events until I retired. I needed a new strategy.

In 2015, through a program with Conspire Coaching, I learned about my strengths through CliftonStrengths — finding out that my top strengths according to this assessment were Strategy, Empathy, Connection, Individualization, and Belief.

Using these strengths in my job at the time took effort, and sometimes I felt like I was trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. I realized that instead of going broader, I wanted to go DEEPER, focusing on engagement, connection, and empowerment.

To make a long story short, I’ve been forging that path ever since, and today I feel so lucky that my work aligns very well with my strengths.

Are there days when I need to work on my less-strong areas? For sure! But that doesn't take away from the feeling of FLOW that I experience on a regular basis when using and developing those qualities that come naturally to me.

According to the StrengthsFinder book, your strengths are the skills or capacities you’re naturally good at, which you have developed. When you use and develop your strengths, you can get much farther and feel much more fulfilled than when you’re working on your weaknesses or the areas you’re “just fine” at.

With so much upheaval in the world and in our professional lives, many people that I talk with are feeling burnt out and not sure what direction to go next. I have found that putting one's strengths at the center of one's career path can be life-giving.

If you want to learn more about your strengths, better align your work around them, and let them be seen, let’s have a chat!