One of the things that has always bothered me about staff evaluations, including my own, is that although we talk about the “positives,” our actual focus is usually on the negatives.  Several years ago, the late Dr. Donald Clifton published the results of thirty years of research that he had done for the Gallup Foundation.  His conclusion – we all have a variety of strengths, and if we really want to improve what we do, we must spend more time focusing on our strengths than on our weaknesses.  He explains it this way – if I am really bad at something and I spend a great deal of time working on improving the things I am really bad at doing, then the best result I will get is that I might move from really bad to just bad.  Either way, I’m still pretty bad at whatever it may be.  Dr. Clifton suggested in his book, “The Strengthsfinder” that we would all get better results if we were to focus on improving the things we already have as strengths.  That, of course, doesn’t mean that we have a ready-made excuse to ignore basic skills that we have to master for our jobs.  For instance, I have never been particularly excited about school plant management or school finance, but there were some basics that I had to learn to do my job – like understanding energy conservation measures and how to develop a budget.  There really is no thrill there for me, but I know how to do those things.   Those things are skills that every superintendent must have to be effective.  However, Dr. Clifton has identified 34 “talents” that he says can be found among all people.   (You can find out what your top 5 strengths are by taking the online assessment, but you have to buy the book Strengthsfinder 2.0 to get the code to log into the assessment.)  Some people are strong analytics; others are great arrangers; still others have the strength of command. 
But, those talents are not all there is.  Christians believe that we all have spiritual gifts.  Some people have the gift of music; others have the gift of encouragement; still others have the gift of teaching or preaching.  (If you are interested, you can also find a spiritual gifts survey online as well – just Google it).
 
The point is this – many of us are not using all of our strengths, talents and gifts to the maximum simply because we have never taken an inventory about ourselves.  We spend too much time looking at our shortcomings.   What a waste!  Remember, if you are really bad at something, the most you can do is go from really bad to bad, but you still won’t be good at it.  Instead, why not take an inventory of what you do well and commit to becoming better at those things.
 
Take at least 7 minutes today to ask yourself this question:        What are at least 3 things that I have to offer the community, the school district, my school, my family or even one other person in my life that no one else has to offer?  You will find you have more than just 3 things, but asking the question will get you started focusing on the best you have to offer.