Celebrate Yourself With This Skills And Strengths Assessment

Listing and celebrating our skills and strengths from time to time can provide a helpful boost to self-esteem.

In a culture that constantly reminds us of the things we lack, the exercise that follows is a simple but radical way to remember the talents and expertise that we already have.

You can use it to capture professional skills, but it can be an affirming exercise for your home life and hobbies, too.

Step 1: List your skills and strengths

Take a piece of paper, and draw a line lengthways down the middle. At the top of the left-hand column, write the heading “My skills”.

Take a second piece of paper, and again divide it into two columns. On the left-hand side, write the heading “My strengths”.

Next, take as much time as you need to list everything you can think of. You can use more paper, but make sure to keep the right-hand column empty!

Here are some prompts in case you get stuck:

• List soft skills like time management or conversational skills
• Include hard skills like coding or copywriting
• Write down interests and hobbies like cycling or knitting
• Add qualifications like a Bachelors’ degree in English, or a music diploma
• Skills and strengths can be as big or small as you like — “project management” and “unjamming printers” are both OK!

Step 2: Ask someone else to list your skills and strengths

The reason for this step is that other people can sometimes see our talents and aptitudes more easily than we can ourselves.

Repeat the process for Step 1, but give the two sheets of paper to someone else. You could ask a close friend, a family member, or a trusted colleague at work.

Alternatively, or if you feel awkward asking someone to fill out a sheet of paper, you could just talk to one or two people who know you well. Ask them to identify your skills and strengths, and write down what they say.

Either way, make sure to allow the other person enough time for the task.

Step 3 (optional): Imagine how those skills and strengths could transfer

If you’re considering a change of career, it can feel like there’s a big gap between where you are now, and all the things you’d need to know to get your first job in a new field.

However, many skills transfer well between different lines of work. These can provide an important platform for any further learning you need to do.

In the second column on each sheet of paper, write down how you imagine each item in the list could support your work in a new career.

For example, if you are planning a new design career and wrote “good at presentations” as one of your strengths, you could write “would help me lead client meetings” in the second column.

Follow the same process for any sheets filled out by other people, too! If there is some duplication, try to think of an extra way that the same skill could help you.

Step 4: Celebrate!

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