Every year we do a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis on Taylor Studios Inc.  It helps us identify the most important things on which to focus.  It is also great to review it yearly to see the progress we’ve made.

A personal SWOT analysis can also help you.  As I’ve said previously, “Great leaders and great people strive for self-knowledge and self awareness.”  A personal SWOT can help identify your strengths, minimize your weaknesses and take advantage of your best opportunities.  Here is a template you can use to get started:

Strengths:

What do you do well?

What advantages do you have?

What do you do better than anyone else?

Weaknesses:

What could you improve?

Is there something you avoid doing?

Opportunities:

What opportunities may be open or would you like to see open to you?

Threats:

To what threats do your weaknesses expose you?

Or, what may prevent you from achieving a new opportunity?

This year, the two things I decided to work on are impulse control and building people up.  I’ve decided to limit it to two focus areas.  I have been told many times – less is more.  I’m more likely to achieve it if I keep myself narrowly focused.  In regards to impulse control, as an entrepreneur, I like getting things done and getting them done fast.  This means sometimes I react too quickly to stimulus.  I need to learn to pause, before jumping in. As far as building people up, my mother once told me if you have nothing nice to say about someone, don’t say anything at all.  I think sometimes in an attempt to be funny it can lead to putting someone down.  I’ve decided to stick to self-deprecating humor instead.  I’ve worked on both of these before, yet think there is plenty of room for improvement.  I believe they are a big opportunity to improve my life.  I now need to come up with specific actions I will implement to make sure I am making progress.

What are your opportunities?

“True freedom lies in the ability to pause between stimulus and response and in that pause, choose.” – Rollo May