A Deeper Look Into Your Strengths, Weaknesses, Passions, and Dreads
How we can view our talents or passions as a bigger picture combined
I recently had a conversation with a good friend who’s at crossroads. His career is progressing well as an accountant, but he feels extremely trapped. It’s the same, mundane routine over and over, day after day, week after week, with payday being the only solace. Is that all there is to life?
Being an avid reader on Medium, and a follower of self-help gurus, I shared what I learned to help him walk through clearing his mind, figuring out what his priorities are, and increasing his self-awareness in general.
The Proficiency/Passion Matrix
Somewhere between the conversation, I tried to discover the gap between how he perceives himself, and how others (me, a close friend) see him. Which incidentally led to these cliché interview questions:
- What are your strengths and weaknesses?
- What are your passions, and what do you dread/hate?
After asking these 2 questions, a lightbulb came on in the form of this image:
- Vitamins are the skills you are good at, and like are passionate about.
- Jabs are the skills you are good at but hate to do it.
- Cigarettes are the skills you are not good at but are passionate about.
- Poison is the skills you are not good at and hate to do it.
This is not a new concept, but it got myself thinking: As an aspiring entrepreneur, what if I craft this matrix out, in relation to my startup goals? It could even be done for my personal self-awareness!
A Deeper Look At The Matrix
Vitamins and Poisons are obvious because sometimes, talent breeds interest. Cigarettes and Jabs though are the ones usually hidden out of sight.
An example of a Jab might be a disinterested soul banging out masterpieces upon masterpieces on the piano because they were forced by parents to learn it from a young age. One might even debate that the disdain developed from the compulsory classes.
Another example could be my friend, the accountant disillusioned with their job. They might have loved the work or pursued the degree for a well-paying job, but is now having an epiphany to switch career paths. So, they are a professional at what they have come to dislike.
What about Cigarettes? Some might like drawing but are not very good at it. Our accountant might have picked up an interest in photography, but is still new at the game.
Working Out Your Proficiency/Passion Chart
Once you’ve figured out your goal, think about your strengths, weaknesses, passions, and dreads. For each of your strength/weakness, plot them out in relation to how passionate you are, and vice-versa for your passions/dreads. (For example, I hate handling finances).
You should then get something like this:
Using This Graph To Your Advantage
As startup founders or personal project addicts, we all have to wear multiple hats, especially at the beginning of the journey. While it’s the dream to only work on Vitamins, it’s not always possible.
However, this chart does help clarify who to hire/outsource next, or how to split tasks among founders after comparing everyone’s graphs.
Granted, there will be tasks no one wants to do. (Pick up dry cleaning anyone?). But drawing up this graph and realizing this commonality among all collaborators’ charts definitely makes it easier for everyone to distribute “shit jobs” equally.
In my case, I can draw these conclusions after comparing all of our charts:
- I can definitely outsource graphic design, and have another partner deal with the finances, leaving myself with no Poison (how lucky!)
- I’m not good with marketing, but since it’s a Poison for them but a Cigarette for me, I can look into it.
- Programming is a Vitamin for me, but there is someone in the team that has a higher Vitamin score, so I can offload that and work on Product.
The idea is not to avoid everything you are bad at or uninterested in; it is to clarify the purpose of doing it, such as I have for videography, which is a Cigarette skill of mine.
Conclusion
Not only can this be useful in collaborations big or small, it can also help to raise your self-awareness, understand your priorities, and look into yourself with more clarity.
It can then help you work on your weaknesses with a purpose (what is the reason you are working on Poisons or Cigarettes?), or zoom in on your strengths, to exponentiate growth by harnessing the 80/20 rule.
