Buzz Lightyear crossed with Jimmy Hendrix

If you ask my four year old nephew what he wants to be when he grows up he’ll tell you an Astronaut and a guitar player. So it was fitting that for his pre-school graduation he got Buzz Lightyear wings and a guitar. The interesting thing is those wings say not meant for flying and doesn’t quite know how to play a cord. Maybe that’s the great thing about being a kid, their audacity to dream big. Unfortunately as we grow older reality tells us just how crazy some of our dreams have been. If we’re lucky, like I was, then we’ll have parents telling us we can have or do anything we want in our lives. Nobody has proven my parents wrong yet.

I speak a lot about finding your sweet spot and today I want to help you determine your own. My worry is those of us who have what I like to call American Idol Syndrome (AIS). You love to do something with all your heart, but at the end of the day you suck at it – like most on American Idol it may be singing. AIS, as I’ll refer to it, is typically based on poor self awareness. However, it may also be based on lack of self control. It is easy to get caught up with the concept of doing something we love, or what sounds like something great, when the fact is we’re not very good or qualified for it. Singing is a great example, but in all the career advice I’ve given I see it in a variety of other areas as well.
Your sweet spot is where your abilities are at their best and your passions are flowing to the max. I see people who are put in roles they are great at, but the tasks don’t excite them at all. I experienced this when I was a corporate recruiter. Don’t get me wrong parts of the job had me very passionate, but the basics of recruiting didn’t do it for me. Sound surprising? Even the fun tasks may not be things that excite us.

So how do we find our sweet spot? A little exercise, help from our friends and being honest with ourselves. Take out a piece of paper and draw a line down the center. On the left list out at least 20 things you are truly good if not great at doing. These should be things people complement you on all the time, items noted in your performance review. These could be the classes you excelled in with relative ease. On the right hand side list out the things you love to do (at least 20 items again). These are the things you find yourself doing naturally. Items that you volunteer to do or can’t believe how time flies by when you’re doing them. Now find the overlap. The hard part for some is finding employment in the overlap zone. It takes work, but as I’ll talk about in future blog posts it will be worth it. You may also want to get feedback from your peers, friends, and colleagues on what you put on the left side and ask them if you have any blind spots – things listed that you are not so strong at doing. Again it goes back to being honest and accurate otherwise this activity gets you nowhere fast.

Be prepared, this exercise could tell you that you’re not working in your sweet spot.