It is rightly said that opportunities don’t happen. You create them. To create valuable opportunities for yourself, you should explore your potential to the fullest. To achieve this, you must know your strengths and weaknesses well.
Having a deep insight into your strengths and weaknesses helps a great deal in life and your career. The right tool to assess yourself is a Personal SWOT Analysis. It enables you to identify your strong and weak areas and focus on enhancing or eliminating them.
What is a Personal SWOT Analysis?
A Personal SWOT Analysis or a SWOT Analysis of Self is evaluating yourself through the SWOT framework, which consists of:
- Strengths
- Weaknesses
- Opportunities
- Threats
In order to do a Personal SWOT Analysis, you must ask yourself specific questions and answer them honestly and genuinely.
Note your Strengths
Note down your strengths on paper. What are your unique advantages such as skillsets, academic and other qualifications, certificates? Do you have any specific expertise? Is your experience noteworthy? Also, note the strengths or qualities, which other people have marked in you. Elaborate your philosophy, social networking, connections, or any successfully completed projects.
Identify your weaknesses
What do you think are your weaknesses? In which areas are you lacking? Have you noticed your specific negative traits, if any? Identify your weaknesses, such as fear of public speaking, lack of punctuality, temperamental decision making, and so on. A realistic approach to weaknesses will help you eliminate them faster.
Review the Opportunities
After analyzing your strengths and weaknesses, it is time to explore the opportunities, which match your skillsets. What are the futuristic fields you would fit in? Can you master any new, upcoming technology? Are there any new activities or projects you could contribute in? Look at every opportunity from a three- sixty-degree point of view before you accept it or let it pass.
Threats
Threats are the obstacles or difficulties you face in any situation. Threats might be present due to your own negative qualities. So, before approaching threats, it is always better to minimize or fix your own negativities. The threats include factors such as a more competent colleague, a lack of proficiency in a new technological tool, a setback in personal life, etc.
Benefits of Personal SWOT Analysis
Strategically thinking and planning your life and career goals, keeping in mind your SWOT Analysis, is immensely helpful. Personal SWOT Analysis has life-transforming benefits.
- Points out the strengths to be optimized and weaknesses to be eliminated
- Empowers you to strategize for career growth
- Enhances your interpersonal intelligence and improves interpersonal interaction
- It helps you in your personality development process
- Show you some new career paths and opportunities, which you may explore further
- Boosts your confidence and competence
The right time for a Personal SWOT Analysis
The SWOT Analysis can be done at any time. But on some specifically important occasions, it will make a real difference.
- Before choosing a certain career or a job in the fields such as marketing, entertainment, event management, mass media and so on.
- Before switching your educational stream or career, assessing your skills would be highly beneficial.
- When appearing in an interview, so that you can showcase your strengths to your benefit
- When you want to apply for an increment or a promotion, a SWOT analysis will give you a clear idea of your strengths and how you can project them.
If you want your Personal SWOT Analysis to contribute to your growth, it is important to follow up on the insights you have discovered. Being honest about the assessment and taking action are important. It will benefit you on the professional front as well as in your personal life. With a proper Personal SWOT Analysis, you will be ready to set benchmarks of excellence.
