Uncovering Strengths

A need to discover and define one’s purpose comes up often in both my work in leadership coaching and life coaching. As a noun, purpose is an individual’s sense of resolve and as a verb it stands for intention – both pointing towards channelling energy and effort something meaningful beyond ourselves. I believe that moving towards one’s purpose needs to be strongly anchored in one’s innate strengths – what I call one’s brilliance.

Uncovering innate strengths is not always an easy task. Very often one’s brilliance may be very unconscious, pushed into the shadow self over years of social conditioning. In context of a coaching conversation, some of the questions that I find impactful in uncovering one’s brilliance:

·      What do you most enjoy doing?

·      What are you most proud of in your life?

·      Tell me about the biggest challenge you faced. How did you overcome that?

Sometimes, an understanding of the client’s brilliance also comes in the answer to the question I ask myself: What do I find most unusual about this client? What unique patterns in thinking and being emerge in our coaching conversations?

The effort to fully own one’s strengths, discover one’s brilliance often has the client staring at a shut door within. Asking the questions above from the place of genuine curiosity and unconditional positive regard for the client, holds the key to unlocking that door.