Live in your strength zone

In the world of self help and personal growth today, we’re all told “if you can believe it, you can achieve it”. We hear parents tell their children “set your mind to it and you can do anything”. While the intent on this type of positive reinforcement is good, it is not reality. We all have natural talents and abilities that are God-given. For example, when I was in high school, my sport of choice was football. I was a 3 year starter both-ways (meaning I started on both sides of the ball) and the team captain. I trained hard in the weight room, ate accordingly and devoted a huge amount of my life to the sport, my dream to play at the Division-1 collegiate level. In Memphis, TN where I lived, our cross town rivals were lead by an all-state offensive lineman/linebacker named Tony Williams. Tony and I were the same age and played similar positions, but Tony was a natural born D-1 player. His senior year in high school Tony played at 6’2”, 245, while my playing weight was 6’2”, 230. The difference was Tony didn’t hit the weight room all summer long... He didn’t eat like a horse like I did. He didn’t run the wind sprints and bleachers. Tony was naturally gifted at the game of getting big in a way that I was not. In other words, he had greater structure and the difference was obvious on the field. In our team’s game against one another our senior year, I remember leaving the huddle on the first play and seeing Tony directly across from me as he assumed his middle-linebacker position. I was in awe of his physical presence. He muscles were bulging thru his padded uniform. Even his calf muscles were larger than my thighs! Needless to say, I gave it everything I had from my Center position to block him, and although he didn’t get much in the way of tackles that night; it was obvious who was exhausted and who wasn’t. Fortunately, I didn’t have to bump heads with Tony while playing defense. After graduation, we both choose The University of Memphis as our collegiate and football destinations, Tony on a full-scholarship while I planned to walk on. In college, Tony continued to grow and get better. Four years later, Tony was a whopping 295 pounds defensive lineman and as wide as a truck. He was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings and went on to a very illustrious career spanning 9 years in the NFL.
While I was a talented player at the high school level, Tony was able to do things at the next two levels that I never would be able to accomplish, no matter how hard I worked. Does this mean that my life isn’t special? Of course not! It simply meant that my natural gift existed in another area. Once I found that arena, which for me turned out to be leadership, sales, marketing and building relationships, I rocketed to the top of my field. Before my 30th birthday I had built a multi-million dollar business and personally earning in excess of $100,000 per month. Now, imagine if I had taken the stance that I was going to make it as a football player and had dogmatically stuck to that decision. Where would I be today? Instead, I decided to adjust my sail and try something different. I found my niche, my strength zone, and my success exploded exponentially.
The question I pose, and challenge to you today, are you living in your strength zone? Or, are you living in someone else’s plan for you? Maybe a plan that you one time thought was right, but it’s just not panning out?
We know the detriments to investing your life into an area that isn’t your lane. The question is, how do you know if you’re in operating where you need to be? As a leader, how do I find my strength zone?
Here are a few questions to ask yourself that can help you find the answers? Take a few minutes to write down the answers to the following:
What can I do that comes easy to me that others find hard to do?
What would I want to work for even if I never got paid?
How can I take what I know and that comes easy to me and help larger numbers of people?
What do others consistently compliment me on? The key word here is consistently
Equally as important is asking the adverse question, what am I NOT good at? Where is my weak zone?
What do I not enjoy doing?
What is harder for me that is easier for others?
What are my negative habits? Are these related to my investing my time in something that is NOT in my strength zone? Sometimes negative habits are the subconscious’ way of telling us we’re not in our lane.
Take a few minutes to privately journal the answers to these questions and be brutally honest. The greatest lie we ever tell is the one we tell to ourselves. Seek a mentor you trust and ask them to review your answers, giving you straight forward feedback.
As a leader, I’ve learned that operating in our strength zone has a HUGE impact on our effectiveness when it comes to reaching our goals. Consider this story as adapted from John Maxwell’s book “Put Your Dream to the Test”
He wanted to be a conductor. However, his style was odd, to say the least. When conducting soft passages, he’d crouch down. When the music called for a crescendo, he’d leap into the air with a shout. One time he jumped to cue a dramatic passage, but the musicians didn’t respond. He’d lost track of his place and jumped too soon. The musicians often looked to the first violinist instead of to him for direction.
His memory was not very good. During a performance, he tried to conduct the orchestra thru a section of music he had instructed them to skip. When they didn’t play the passage, he stopped conducting altogether and shouted, “Stop! Wrong! That will not do! Again! Again!”
He had clumsiness about him. When he conducted for a piano concerto he had written, he tried to do it from the piano while playing and knocked candles off the piano. During another concert, he knocked over one of the choir boys.
The musicians begged him to give up his dream of becoming a great conductor. Finally he did. From then on, Ludwig van Beethoven gave up conducting and focused his attention on composing.
WOW! Can you imagine? What if Beethoven had insisted on staying a conductor? The world would have lost arguably the greatest composer of all time, and Beethoven would have missed out on finding his lane, the zone he was made for.
As a leader, you have been given a dream, a fiery passion inside your heart to do something. Remember the old saying, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” The creator has placed something amazing inside of you. For most people, those limitations aren’t on the outside rather they reside internally. One of my favorite quotes of all time is by George Bernard Shaw, “I’m sick of all the reasonable people: they see all the reasons for doing nothing.” Now that fires me up and gets my juices flowing! One thing I’m determined in my life not to do is lead that life of quiet desperation, of being reasonable. I would say it is time to be a little unreasonable. Let’s just make sure we’re being unreasonable within our strength zone.
Finally, don’t think the strength zone is going to be without fear, trepidation or doubt. As I posted on my Facebook page not long ago,” we must learn to get move outside our comfort zones while residing in the strength zone.” That is when true magic happens.
You are worth it and you deserve it. Find your strength zone, park yourself there, and then get unreasonable and uncomfortable as often as you can! It will be fun to watch what happens and who knows, you just may impact the world.
To your success,Stevie W.