Actually, this title should read, “ANYWHERE, and at ANYTIME, Gorge Yourself on Strengths!!”
Wait. Let me explain “gorge”. Using the term recently with some recent graduates, they were puzzled…”What do you mean by ‘gorge?'” [Does anyone read books anymore? The dictionary is a good book to read!! Do they even publish dictionaries in hard cover book forms, anymore?] Gorge means to fill yourself, almost gluttonously.
Gorge yourself on strengths.
You can apply this principle anywhere, if you wish to. Actually, I highly recommend that you do.
In your quest for self-improvement, that is, for improving your workplace skills, meditation can only take you a small fraction of the way forward. You need to reach out, read widely, study the world within and around your workplace, and absorb useful information from just about every source imaginable. Bruce Lee, when explaining his source of renowned martial art skills, once said something akin to: “Study. Draw upon what works. Discard the rest.” This remains a profound and timely principle that you can apply in your workplace, and that I describe here as “gorge yourself on strengths”.
Many people at work are busy criticizing, participating in gossip and rumors, etc. Such a waste of time. Smart workers are busy watching those who became successful. They read widely. They participate widely. They work hard. But what differentiates the smart from others, who do much the same but end up merely spinning their “wheels”, is their latent ability to observe, understand, borrow, adopt, and implement those tactics, strategies, and behaviors of successful people.
If you are climbing the corporate ladder, use your colleagues as a platform. Look around. Observe strengths in action around you. See what’s working and what’s not. Learn and adopt what is working. Who is getting the better performance appraisals? Raises? Invited to participate at information sharing sessions? What are they doing that attracts so much positive attention and brings them so much positive reward? Why aren’t you doing that, too?
If you are climbing the corporate ladder, use your superiors as a ladder. Study your managers and executives. How do they behave? What are the focused upon? What are their goals and objectives? Why aren’t you making chunks of that part of your modus operandi?
If you are a manager or even one of the highest levels of corporate officers, apply this same principle by observing your colleagues, within and outside of your company, and especially those who surround you and are below you on the corporate hierarchy in a quest to adopt what works. Thereby, even you, as a corporate top dog, can continue to improve and help your company to continue to improve.
In other words, don’t waste your time complaining or participating in office politics!! Instead, make your everyday mission one of searching and uncovering useful strengths that you can bring to your job. THAT, is how you can succeed quicker, and achieve/succeed more…and how your company can, too.
At every opportunity, fill yourself with skills by adopting strengths from others.
