Principle #2: Do you know your strengths?
My kids are headed back to school soon, and they will be doing all sorts of assessments to see how they’re doing in math and reading and writing. And this got me thinking. I need to do a series of mini podcast episodes for moms to assess how they are doing, not with balancing equations or diagramming sentences (because I have a feeling most of us would fail those assessments), but to assess something way more important: our own levels of emotional wellbeing.
You may be thinking, is there an assessment for that? And I am glad to inform you that, yes. Yes, there is!
A few years ago, I took everything I’d learned from interviewing over 300 experts in parenting and self-development and I boiled it down to six (*formerly nine!) principles of self-assured motherhood. These were the common threads that I found between all of the experts. I realized that if we, as overwhelmed moms, could master these areas, we would have so much more joy, more connected relationships, and more inner peace.
I put these principles into a framework and created a self-assessment that overwhelmed moms could take that would go along with this framework. This way, they could concretely figure out how they’re doing emotionally and would be able to see visually where they are thriving and where they deserve to put more attention.
These six principles will be the basis for this SAM Framework mini-series.
So, let’s dive into the second principle! It’s one of the most fun ones!
Principle #2: Know Your Strengths:
A lot of women, myself included have a really hard time doing this. We spend so much time, energy, and even money trying to fix ourselves that we often completely overlook all of the things that we naturally do.
The problem is we all only have a finite amount of energy and time. If we are using our energy and time to focus on fixing what we think we’re doing wrong, we can’t use that energy and time to focus on magnifying what we are doing right. We would get so much farther putting the same amount of energy into something that is a natural strength than we will ever get putting that energy into something that is a natural weakness.
Now, that’s not to say that I am against trying to improve yourself and learn new skills! That’s what personal development is. In some ways, one could argue that my podcast includes a lot of personal development, but I hope that it always comes with an undertone of you are good enough. You are great at so many things.
And so, yes, work on improving areas of your life that are a struggle for you or that cause conflicts in your relationships. You can put some effort and energy there. But more than anything lean into and focus on what you are good at.
When you start to do that, your growth in that area will become exponential.!
Here is a quote about this concept that I share with the women in my self-assured motherhood program. It comes from an article from the 2005 Harvard business review:
It’s a rare baseball player who was equally good at every position. Why should a natural third baseman labor to develop his skills as a right fielder?
I love that concept. In sports, when a coach figures out that somebody has a really big gift in one area, he doesn’t say to them, “Oh, I know that you are an incredibly talented third baseman, but I think you should be more well-rounded and you’re not very good at pitching, so let’s spend all of our time and energy trying to fix you as a pitcher.”
No! A coach says, “Okay, you need to be all-around athletic and work on your skills, but let’s really lean into magnifying your skills as a third baseman.”
I would like to see more moms doing that for themselves in their motherhood, their roles as home managers, their workplace, and their friendships! I want to see more moms say, “I’m not so great at these things, but I’m not going to focus on that. I’m going to focus on the things that I excel at.”
Did you and your family spend a lot of time sitting around together and watching these incredible athletes during Olympics? I know that we did, and it was so much fun! By far our favorite Olympian of the Paris games was the Pommel Horse Guy, Stephen Nedoroscik.
Stephen seemed like such an unlikely gymnastic star. He had glasses and looked kind of nerdy. In the men’s all-around competition, he was the very last one to compete, and the camera kept showing shots of him waiting to go. He looked like he was sleeping!
However, once it was his turn, he got up took off his glasses, and he busted out this incredibly skilled routine on the pommel horse! It was like Clark Kent turned Superman!
What I love about this story Stephen Nedoroscik is that he is really a specialist in the pommel horse. This was the only event that he competed in the Olympics and the US gymnastics team brought him on because he’s a specialist in that one area.
An article from NPR tells the story best:
“U.S. men’s gymnastics, chasing its first Olympic team medal since 2008, decided to switch up its strategy this time around…Rather than assign all five spots on the team to all-around’ gymnasts who compete on each apparatus, the U.S. decided to allot one slot on the team to a specialist: Nedoroscik. He is competing only on pommel horse, a notoriously difficult apparatus and a weak spot for many teams.
“What it comes down to is that [Nedoroscik’s] scores on pommel horse are so much higher than everybody else on that one event that he adds a tremendous amount of potential score,” said Tim Daggett, an NBC Sports gymnastics analyst who himself won gold in the 1984 Olympics.
“As a teen, Nedoroscik said he didn’t realize how good he was at the pommel horse until a visiting coach marveled that he could one day be a national champion. Sure enough, one year later, he won the Junior Olympic national title on pommel horse. By the time he got to college, he made that his focus.
‘When you go from a club gym to a collegiate gym, you see just how talented gymnasts really are in this nation,’ he said. ‘And purely just wanting to be the best at pommel horse at Penn State, I decided to specialize. And I’ve stuck with that ever since.’”
What is remarkable about Stephen Nedoroscik’s story is that his pommel horse performance sealed the USA team’s bronze metal, which was the first metal for USA men’s gymnastics in 16 years! He went on to earn an individual bronze medal as well in the event, becoming the second American man in 40 years to earn a metal in the pommel horse event. Imagine if he had beat himself up for not being as good as the other gymnasts on the floor exercise or rings or vault! Imagine if he had invested hours and hours into trying to improve his performance in those weaker areas, instead of putting hours and hours into trying to improve on what he was already amazing at!
He knew his strengths and refined his skills in the area of his strengths, and it made all the difference.
So, how does this apply to motherhood?
Know Your Strengths Personal Example:
There are a lot of things that I don’t do well as a mom. I am a hot mess when it comes to having routines in our home or staying organized. I can beat myself up about that, and I can focus on how it can negatively impact my children. It makes me want to shame myself and to pour all of my time and energy into trying to improve this one natural area of weakness.
But shaming myself isn’t helpful!
I can certainly chip away and improve little by little, but I am not going to focus all of my time and energy on it when I could be focusing instead on my innate and natural gifts as a mother and becoming a true specialist in those.
When I know my strengths, I can focus on them and celebrate them!
Something that I do really well as a mom is connecting with my kids.
Connecting is a strength of mine, and I have decided to forgive myself for not being naturally good at the Type A stuff. Instead, I can know my strengths and really lean into how good I am at creating connections.
One way in particular that I excel is through storytelling. I have always loved telling stories. I’ve always loved reading stories to my kids. And one of my favorite things to do is to tell them stories about themselves when they were little about my childhood, about our life. It really bonds us together.
This summer, I had to drive my kids up to a camp that was about 20 minutes north of where we live. Normally we just sit in the car or listen to music or the kids fight while we drive around, but that morning I had the stroke of inspiration that I wanted to grab our delve deck.
As we drove, the kids pulled cards, and we all answered the questions. I had some animated stories to tell them in response to these questions and ended up sharing a lot of stories. As we got close to camp, the card that they pulled had the question on it: “What is something that immediately brings a smile to your face?”
Sally’s response melted my hear: When mom tells us stories.
Talk about a mom win! It made me so grateful that I leaned into my strengths that day! I didn’t obsess over the fact that we were running a little bit late, or that my son forgot his lunch, or all of the things that were less than organized that day.
Instead, I knew my strengths and celebrated them. I recognized that I am doing a good job as a mom and that my kids feel connected to me and they love to hear me tell them stories.
So, how are you doing? Do you know your strengths? Are you celebrating them? Now it’s time to assess how you are doing in this area. How well, do you know your strengths?
I mentioned above that I developed a self-assessment tool for moms. I use this assessment in my program that I teach to overwhelmed moms who want to know themselves better, more fully honor, their needs, and more deeply love their people. I call it Self-Assured Motherhood.
At the beginning of that program, these SAM sisters (as we call them) color in a Venn diagram based on where they’re currently sitting with each of the six (*formerly 9) principles of Self-Assured Motherhood. I give them a definition of what it looks like to be green in this area, what it looks like to be yellow in this area, and what it looks like to be red in this area.
This way, they can visually see how they’re doing and they can honestly self-assess.
At the end of the program, they do the same exercise so they can concretely see how much they have grown and learned over our time together. It is truly incredible to witness their progress!
So today I am going to give you the green, yellow, red definitions that I give to the women in my program for this first principle of self-assured motherhood, and you can mentally decide what color best describes you right now:
If you’re green: You can concretely define five of your top personality strengths, and you consciously weave them into the many roles you fill: motherhood, work, friendships, and beyond.
If you’re yellow: You have a sense of what your gifts are, but you haven’t articulated them or given much thought to how you could bring them into all of the different roles you feel in order to feel more fulfilled.
If you’re red: You don’t know what your unique gifts are, and you often compare yourself to other women. You often talk negatively about yourself and spiral into mom guilt for all of the things that you quote should be doing, but aren’t.
So, where are you with knowing your strengths? Are you green, yellow, or red?
If you’re not quite where you want to be yet, I hope you will join us in my Self-Assured Motherhood program this fall, where we will spend an entire month talking about strengths, and I will help you learn how to identify your unique gifts and weave them into your everyday life as a mom. Enrollment for the program will open September 9th, and if you download that “Green, Yellow, Red” self-assessment, you’ll be automatically added to the program waitlist and you’ll get a special discount as soon as the doors open for enrollment.
I want to end this episode with a quote by Dr. Martin Seligman. Who’s known as the father of positive psychology. He has said this:
“To be truly happy, one must be aware of their most fundamental strengths and use them in daily life.”
My friend, I hope you know how incredible you are and that you can come to know your strengths. You have unique strengths and gifts that only you can bring to your family and to the world. I hope you will stop fixating on all of the things you feel like you are doing wrong and instead lean into all of the things you are doing very well.
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Related Episodes like this one on Knowing Your Values:
- 262: 3 Ways to Recover from Mom Burnout
- 314: How to Feel like Yourself in Motherhood // Aleisha McKean
- 349: Overcoming Decision Fatigue through Reflection // Emily P. Freeman
