Have you ever stopped to consider the tasks that you dread doing? What about the tasks that suck the life out of you? Why are you doing them?

From a young age, we’re taught to work on our weaknesses. Not good at ________? Do extra work. Get help. Work harder and get better at it, right? Ram it through! Didn’t it feel like you were pushing a rope uphill? So much extra pain and effort for mediocre results that didn’t come easily.

Watch this 3-minute video, “The Suck Bucket: How to Use Time Effectively & Delegate” to discover how your Suck Bucket influences your world – in both business and life!

Flaunt Your Weakness

In The Freak Factor: Discovering Uniqueness by Flaunting Weakness, author, David Rendall, demonstrates this point:

“More than thirty years ago, the board of education in Omaha, Nebraska, tested the reading comprehension of high school freshmen. They discovered that some students could only read 90 words per minute with good comprehension, while others could read 350 words per minute with the same level of comprehension. They put all the students in an Evelyn Wood speed-reading course to improve their skills. At the end of the six weeks, the students who were weak readers and had only been able to read 90 words per minute had improved to 150 words per minute.

However, the students who were already strong readers improved their scores dramatically, going from 350 words per minute to almost 3,000 words per minute. We often think that we should work on our weaknesses because we have room to improve in those areas, but this example shows that our greatest opportunities for improvement lie in our existing strengths.” Rendall, David. The Freak Factor: Discovering Uniqueness by Flaunting Weakness. Advantage Media Group (October 14, 2015), p 175.

Rendall encourages us to spend more time focusing on what we excel at doing. Do this, and our lives will open up, expanding our abilities exponentially, even increasing performance. Bonus, we’ll have more fun doing it.

We need to be aware of our weaknesses and embrace them; to see them for what they are and how they fit into who we are as a whole person. No one is good at everything. But what would happen if we focused on our natural abilities? What if we focus on leveraging our strengths and delegate our weaknesses? How would that impact our business? It is a subtle shift with a massive benefit.

The Energy Thief

In addition, beware the things that we are good at – but just don’t enjoy doing. They will steal our energy at a surprising rate. These also belong in our delegation bucket. Find other people that love doing it and are great at it and hand it over to them.

Let’s shift our focus to our Sweet Spot – the things we love to do and are truly great at. Let’s put our precious energy into these things that ONLY we can do. Be aware of our weaknesses and energy thieves so we know what to delegate then be prepared to let someone who is great at it run with it. It will take some courage, but you can do it, more importantly, THEY can do it!

Now, go empty your Suck Bucket!

Next steps:

Special credit to Joe Keeley regarding the concept of the “Suck Bucket”. For more information about Joe and his company, visit his website.

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