Work at Your Best Doing Your Worst!

What do you spend most of your (work) time doing? Things you're good at? Things you're terrible at? Or do you just spin your wheels doing things that just don't matter?

Developing yourself personally and professionally means that you have to do things with a purpose. You can't just let life carry you forward, blowing you wherever it leads. There is no virtue in doing whatever comes your way. You need to take control of your actions and move forward with a purpose.

So what do you spend your time doing? Well, let me give you some food for thought...

• 80% of your time should be spent working where you're strongest.
• 15% of your time should be spent working where you're learning.
• 5% of your time should be spent working where you're weakest.

Working where you're strongest most of the time ensures that you'll prosper at whatever it is that you do. But you have to deliberately focus your time and energy on those things that you know you're good at. Push other things aside if you know you can't do them adequately and instead favor those things which you can.

But you need to be sure to save time for learning and eduction. You can never get good at anything unless you take time to learn and gather new knowledge or information. Set aside time every day to read, listen or engage in a conversation that allows you to develop new skills and strategies.

Finally, you absolutely must spend time on things that you just suck at. Yeah, I know... nobody likes to do things if they can't do them well, but the truth is, you never will do them well until you just start doing it. Everything that you're good at now you sucked at doing some time before. So take the time to develop skills where you have none.