When evaluating your career, where you are, where you have come from and most importantly where you want to go, many people find it difficult to define their full range of skills. By skills I mean those “gifts” that you have that you are either aware of or not aware of, some of which you place value on, other that you don’t.

Common sense would suggest that if you are looking to make a career move it would be wise to focus on finding a job that uses your gifts or skills. I would also go so far as to say that any job or career that you go looking for needs to allow you to both use the skills that you love and the ones you do well. Get that combination right and you are setting yourself up for a very fulfilling and rewarding future.

Some clients who come to me for career coaching can be faced with the dilemma that they are unsure what their skills are, sometimes even believing that they posses no skills at all. I honestly believe that everyone has a unique set of gifts or skills that when channelled in the right way can materialise into a very fulfilling career.

Someone who is a great listener might make a great life coach, someone who is focused and driven might make a great project manager, someone who loves detail would be invaluable to an accountancy practise.

Here is a little exercise I came across recently in John Lee’s book “How to get a job you’ll love” that I hope will help you get more clarity on what your full range of skills and gifts are.

The concept here is “Skill Clips” and as the title suggests it is about reflecting on your life to-date and identifying key defining moments or “movie clips” of your life that stand out for you in a very positive way. If you can come up with 6, 7 or even 10 that is great and they do not all have to be work related. Creating these “skill clips” allows you to get more clarity on your core skills that you do well and also enjoy doing. Once you have this clarification, you can start looking for jobs that will allow you to use these skills.

In creating your “Skill clip” you need to first think of a time in your past that you recall for very positive reasons. It might be winning a race, getting a promotion, completing a project. Then like any great movie you need to first give it a title, and then come up with a “pitch”; a short sentence that summarises the initial challenge and the eventual road to success.

Now you are ready to lay out the movie itself. Starting with the “opening shot”, define what skills you used that motivated you to take on the challenge (e.g. overcoming fear, acknowledging limitations), then move onto the “First Step” defining what did you do to start tackling your challenge and what skills you called on (e.g. Did you learn a technical skills or develop problem solving skills). Now the “Main act”, what were all the skills you used that enabled you to take on the challenge and get to your achievement (E.g. Working in a team, quick decision making, helping others). Finally once you got your success, what skills did you use in celebrating your success and what insights into yourself did you learn as a result of achieving this great outcome?

Repeat this process 6 or 7 times keeping the “events” you recall in as short a timeframe as possible, minutes rather than hours or days. Explore what common skills are coming up for you on a consistent basis. What type of job or career would allow you to use these skills?

This exercise and more are available in John Lees book – “How to get a job you’ll love” and is available from most book shops.

Good luck and stick with it, perseverance pays.

Copyright © 2007 Synergy Coaching Services.