Recently, I attended a retreat called Powerhouse California, and it was so great. The experience was so transformative for me, and now I want to share some of the things I learned. Messaging and storytelling were the topics we discussed the most. It inspired to talk about discovering what your strengths are, and how you should embrace them with confidence!

Some of you may know or may not know this: I was a Court Reporter for 9 years, and I just sat mute at my job. My job required me to document court testimonies and oppositions. That career was so not in line with what my strengths are.

How to Discover What Your Strengths Are

My strengths are communication and connection. And I did neither of those… for 9 years.  I felt so invisible, like a fly on the wall, documenting the lives of other people.

I remember a time when I was sitting in an office in Lower Manhattan. One of the attorneys was speaking, and he stepped right in front of me. He stood there and spoke for a couple hours. Looking back at that moment, I remember how that made me feel… I just felt so small and invisible.

I also remember thinking to myself… I have so much more to share and so much more to give than this. Not long after that, I had the guts to move to California. I basically threw myself out there and hoped for the best!

It was time for me to embrace my strengths.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do… I knew that I wanted to express, share, and communicate. At the time, I wasn’t sure what that looked like, so what did I do? I totally did a deep dive into every form of communication I possibly could!

I signed up for every class you could image: writing, acting and on-camera classes. I hired a voice coach, and learned how to do video editing. Every form of communication, whether it was a verbal, writing, audio, everything… I did it!

Then, I just started making these videos about my days of sitting silent.

I gave myself a voice back then, and it was funny and silly and goofy, and I absolutely loved making them. I didn’t know what I was gonna do with them, but deeper than that, it wasn’t about the content at that time.

It was really around owning my voice in some type of way and being able to just talk and share and be creative, and do what I do best.

Now I create my videos and I communicate.

Any way that I can be communicating with people; whether that’s one on one in conversation; or in a group, just socially; or on video; or writing with my book and creating my next one. Any way that I can do that – with my blog – I do it!

It was just so powerful to see that journey of going from feeling so invisible and voiceless to owning my voice in every single capacity. You see, knowing what your strengths are isn’t an overnight discovery… it takes time to learn more about yourself and what you’re good at.

How can you know what your strengths are?

The honest truth is that you have to sit down and reflect. You have to take a look around you and think about your feelings. Do you like your job? Are you experiencing fulfillment in what you’re doing? You should enjoy the work that you do. In fact, you deserve it.

Here’s what you can do right now, starting today. Buy yourself a notebook and a pen, then start journaling every single day. Ask yourself some personal questions and answer them honestly.

The secret to knowing what your strengths are is to know yourself, love yourself, and be courageous enough to do things that are outside of your comfort zone. From there, the sky’s the limit!