Humans are full of paradoxes. We will gladly spend time and energy doing things that are unfamiliar yet strangely appealing and dread the things that we’re good at but don’t enjoy.

Have you ever wondered why some things, no matter how good we are at them, don’t bring us joy or prompt us to do more? And if you try to reason with yourself to keep going at them, you’d end up feeling drained, unhappy and sometimes resentful towards this activity and those who want you to do it? When well-meaning people compliment you on a said skill, you’ll most likely thank them and carry on without changing your attitude. Their praises can’t make you enjoy it more.

But if the same person was to comment on something that you hold dear to your heart, the dynamic will shift radically. Even an off-hand remark would bring you authentic joy and possibly “awaken the monster” by inspiring you to do more in this area.

Skill vs. Strength

Why is it that we will gladly spend time and energy doing things that are unfamiliar yet strangely appealing and dread the things that we’re good at but don’t enjoy? The answer to this question lies in understanding that one is an inherent trait we were born with – called character strength, while the other is a competency, a skill we’ve acquired during our lifetime.

There’s no limit to how many skills you can learn in your life, however there’s a limit to what feels authentic to you. While each of us possesses all 24 character strengths, only a handful of them, usually between four and six, are expressed to their fullest. We call them signature strengths and colloquially speaking we refer to them as our character. Strengths you have for a lifetime and have been with you in some way, shape or form since you were a child.

Skills, on the other hand, can be taught and mastered. Yet, if not practiced consistently, they will be easily forgotten – just think of the language that you learned many years ago and haven’t had a chance to practice. I bet it’s quite rusty! Even though we may accomplish a certain level of mastery in a skill, if we don’t consider it enjoyable and intrinsically rewarding, it would eventually feel like a chore. When we tap into one of our strengths however, we will feel energized and joyous.

“Strengths are those personal attributes which energize us, feel like us and enable us to perform at our best. It is very likely that your strengths are also the things that you are good at.
If you have a competence, talent or skill in something, you are by definition good at it. In positive psychology terms, a strength is most probably something you are good at because you use it a lot but not necessarily. For example, it could be that you have an ‘unrealized strength’ that is a strength which lies dormant, waiting to be discovered and developed to its maximum potential.

Bridget Grenville-Cleave, “Positive Psychology,” p. 89

Competency Curse

How are the skills and strengths related to one’s life purpose? I’ll explain in a moment, but first I’ll share two seemingly unrelated encounters that made me make the connection. I had a delayed epiphany when I realized that even though I’m really competent at something, it is not a reason enough to keep doing it.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been pretty preoccupied with work. On one hand, I was finishing work as the managing editor of Healthcare Policy and getting things in order for the new editor to take over. On the other, I was busy interviewing with a new potential employer. (They were the ones that actually sought me out! I must admit it is a great feeling to be wanted, even if you’re not quite sure you see yourself doing the actual job! – the end of my shameless bragging!) Needless to say, with the spotlight on work and career it was a perfect opportunity to examine and re-evaluate my wants, needs and strengths.

When you’re so enmeshed in the daily operations of a well-oiled machine that is a journal, you rarely have a chance to take the bird’s eye view and see how – and why – things are the way they are. It’s only when the managing editor leaves and needs to be replaced, the reverberating effect can be felt across all activities. Documenting the day-to-day operations of my old job made me appreciate the complexity of it – read about the many steps of the peer review process – blog post to come.

I’ve always taken great pride in being a managing editor (read about “What exactly does managing editor do”) and being able to put any publication together, be it a magazine, journal, book, annual report. The last one is a shout out to my latest gig as a communications consultant. A publication is a publication is a publication :). But in the last year or so, I slowly came to realize that managing the daily editorial operations had become more draining than enjoyable.

The things that I never particularly enjoyed but wouldn’t mind doing started to annoy me, then drain me to the point of becoming unbearable. My competency became a burden. I couldn’t ignore the inner yearning for change and at the beginning of October I had given my notice to the publisher.

Say the Word

Ask and it’s given, it seems. When I was not even actively looking, the recruiter reached out to me. During the first in-person interview, the hiring manager asked a question of how do I feel about change in general and what would I do to help people adapt to change. The reason behind this question was that their department is undergoing a major transformation and they need to bring in a leader who knows how to handle change and is comfortable with a lot of ambiguity and not a lot of structure in the workplace.

I could not believe the synchronicity and relevance of this question. Not only I am ready for a change on the professional level, I believe that I do know a thing or two about change and transformation.

Without trying to impress too hard, I told the hiring manager about my personal interest in the topic and the fact that my capstone for the positive psychology certificate was on how to use one’s signature strengths to facilitate the process of transition (read about my capstone “Strong Core, Flourishing Life” here). Also, in my latest gig I got to work in a changing environment in the anticipation of the big industry merger, with the company I worked for being absorbed into a brand new agency. And finally – although I didn’t say that aloud – I’ve undergone so much change and transformation in my personal life that a stable, predicable environment feels like a foreign concept. And since we’re on the topic of being foreign, did I mention that I wasn’t born in this country and had to adapt to the Canadian way of life? I guess my accent might have given it away.

Uncovering Life Purpose

With that “how do you feel about change” question the monster had been awakened. I couldn’t stop thinking about my change/transformation knowledge and the possibility of using it in the workplace. Things that I take for granted – the adaptability, resilience, fast-learning, are all expressions of my signature strengths. They are not skills or competencies but the innate traits that make me the unique person I am. Indeed, I am curious, creative and I love learning. What a glorious day it would be if I could again use these strengths in my career.

And as I was basking in the warmth of this thought, it dawned on me that even if this position is not for me, I am ready to share my change/transformation knowledge with others. I started thinking of new and innovative ways of using techniques and tools grounded in positive psychology to help people and organizations go through the stormy waters of change. The ideas kept flowing and I feel really excited about turning them into reality. After all, I know a thing or two about change.