Written by: Audrey Bartolomei, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
‘Be yourself, everyone else is taken’, said Oscar Wild. If you think about it, it is common sense. Then again, why is it so difficult to define what makes us unique?
Because it is touching us in various sensitive aspects: trust, pride, awareness, acceptance, etc.
It may sound like a simple thing and yet we all fall into the trap of saying ‘I am not so special’, ‘There is nothing so unique about me’, I am very common’. If you hear yourself saying these sentences while reading this article, I invite you to park these thoughts for a moment.
THAT IS NOT TRUE. YOU ARE UNIQUE.
So, what makes you unique? Your values, your personality, and many other ingredients combined with your life story and personal experience. In this article, I will give you a lot of concrete tools to get to know yourself better and then how to show it to the world! Don’t stop reading here, as you are about to discover a lot about what makes you so unique! Ready?
Step 1: Know yourself
The first step, as always, is AWARENESS. Easy to remember! If you want to know yourself better, you first need to explore and get to know who you are - to understand what makes you unique, here are the important elements to explore:
1. Get to know your personality.
Your personality is defined by the way you think, feel and behave. It is critical that you understand how you function as a very unique individual. You will discover some areas that are serving you/driving you and others that I call ‘areas of improvements,’ where there is room for you to grow.
How do you get to know your personality? Doing a personality test is a very good option. Many of them exist like MBTI, NEO, Insights, HOGAN etc. For most of them, you need a certified coach to order it and debrief it with you. The value of doing it with a coach is obviously high as you will get a better understanding, and the coach can also help you understand the subtleties that you may not see straight away on your own.
As an alternative to these great renowned test, there is a fun one to do, which you can do on your own: It is called 16 personalities. Click here to access the online test.
2. Get to know your values.
Values are at the core of everything we do and they represent what is important to us. Knowing them is KEY to build your branding.
To define your values, take a pen and a paper and make a list of your 10 most important values. For inspiration, you can have a look at this list.
Put them somewhere nicely and always refer to them. In defining what makes you unique, it is important that you include your values.
3. Get to know your skills.
Distinction Hard Skills/ Soft Skills
What are you good at? Here is, once again, a very critical point. We are talking here about Hard skills AND Soft skills. Both of them are equally important. Hard skills are a must-have. Soft skills are what make the difference. Let’s take a closer look.
Hard skills are your competencies, abilities, what you can do.
Soft skills are your qualities as a human being, how you do things. They are what makes you special.
Exemple: Hard skill: I can deliver webinars. (I know how to do it)
Soft Skills: In my webinar, I include everyone, I use humor to share my ideas, I give people concrete exercises to put them in action, etc.
That’s what makes me unique, not the fact that I can deliver seminars. You got me here?
Write down your soft skills on a piece of paper.
Your natural skills are your gift!
I hear too many times: ‘This is so easy for me, it is not even a skill.’ However, this is exactly where your uniqueness is! What is most natural for you is where your most natural motivations are!
As an exercise, I would suggest doing 2 columns: one with what you are good at/one with what you love to do. The combination of both is your strengths.
4. Get to know your motivations.
What is motivating you? What do you love to do in life? What makes you wake up in the morning?
To understand what makes you unique, you need to know what are your inner motivations.
How to do that? I suggest a couple of options:
Do your Ikigai
IKIGAI is a Japanese concept that means ‘reason of being.’ It is referring to having a direction or purpose in life, towards which you take action. It aims to provide satisfaction and a sense of meaning.
I strongly recommend doing your ikigai if you are looking for your passion, fulfillment in your career. It may be challenging on your own, so getting help to put it all together would be definitely beneficial.
Go on your inner-child exploration: Your inner child has many answers to those questions you are asking yourself, he/she knows what your most natural motivations are. Exploring them can definitely give you many insights. I organize workshops on these topics on a regular basis. Follow me on Linkedin or Instagram to stay tuned about the next dates!
5. Add your Story & Life Experience
Knowing yourself is definitely critical to define your uniqueness. To that, you need to add your story and life experience. The combination of all the ingredients listed above and your life experience makes you a special person with UNIQUE characteristics.
What did you experience in your life? What did you learn from your previous jobs? Which strengths did you develop? What did you learn from your mistakes?
Everything that you have done and experienced shaped you and made you who you are today.
When looking for a job or the next steps in your professional career, defining your uniqueness is a process that will definitely help build your professional project.
6. Make your final statement
Now that you have reflected on the points above, please make a statement about yourself. A short paragraph that describes why you are unique. Think:
What do you want others to remember about you?
This statement is very important as you will say it each time you need to communicate about yourself.
Step 2: Increase your self-awareness by asking for feedback
Why is getting feedback so important?
The Johari windows concept describes this best.
As you can see on the scheme, getting feedback helps us see our blind spots - the areas that we are not able to see ourselves. You will be surprised what you can discover about yourself by asking others what they see in you!
Here is your exercise:
Contact 10 people around you (colleagues, friends, family, boss, etc).
Explain to them that you are working on your branding and unique value proposition. And ask them the following:
‘If you would describe me in one word or sentence, what would it be?’
‘What is my uniqueness according to you?’
See the similarities/differences between your statement/discoveries you have made earlier and the results you got from your feedback. What do you learn about yourself? What can you include in your statement?
Step 3: Spread the word!
Once you have done all these steps, it is very important that you finalize your statement. What makes you unique?
Be aware of the image you give others, your reputation. At work, with friends, on social media, etc. Your reputation shapes how others perceive you in a positive or negative way. You need to be consistent in your communication and behavior.
Work on your uniqueness! Others need to see what you want them to see about you. Reshape your CV, social media, communication that others get a clear image of your branding. What do you want them to remember about you/ what do you want others to say about you?
Last but not least, don’t be shy! You are incredible and the world needs you. Show your strengths and make them shine! Don’t hide your uniqueness, because you are afraid to show off or whatsoever. Look at all the people that did great things in this world. They were not afraid of talking about their beliefs/ projects/ dreams!
I hope that you learned a lot about yourself from this article.
Believe in yourself and just spread the word!
If you want to explore more, do not hesitate to contact me! Talk soon :)
Audrey
BONUS
If you are reading this paragraph, you deserve a bonus ;) Here you will find links to online tests you can do to get to know yourself better. Don’t forget, it is a great start, but debriefing them with a coach will definitely increase the value of what you will get out of it:
To know more about your values: Value center
To know more about your strengths: Via Character or Gallup strengths finders (not free)
To know more about your motivations: Talent today
Enjoy and talk soon!
Audrey Bartolomei, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Audrey Bartolomei is a passionate leadership & career transition coach. After living in several countries across Europe and South-East Asia, she recently settled in Switzerland. For many years, Audrey didn't find a purpose in her professional life until she reconverted as a coach 3 years ago. She decided to make it her life mission to help people find their passion. In her coaching, she uses modern and customized techniques. Her favorite one: the exploration of the inner child. She is convinced that it reveals many hidden, often forgotten, treasures and natural motivations. Today, Audrey is working with top-ranked business schools & leading international outplacement companies. Apart from being a coach, Audrey is a wife and a mom, two very interesting roles giving her a lot of inspiration!
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