How to Find Your A-Game

Consider the world's top athletes, people like Michael Jordan or Simone Biles or Tom Brady. What do they have in common? They know their strengths and play to them. They also don't waste their time on activities outside their wheelhouse.

You won't find Tom Brady filling in on the offensive line or trying to kick a field goal. Michael Jordan didn't allocate any training time to become a marathon runner. And Simone Biles spends zero hours at the batting cages.

You may have met the occasional Renaissance Person who seemed to be good at everything they tried. There are some people like that, but they tend to be Jacks of All Trades and Masters of None. True excellence is another matter entirely. It's exceedingly rare to find someone who achieves mastery of more than one thing.

How much of your professional career has been spent trying to be good at multiple disciplines?

The reality is nearly every one of us must reach a moderate level of accomplishment in more than one skill. That's just a fact of modern life, and it's not necessarily something we need to avoid, either. Being well-rounded is a good thing.

Considering that, how do you truly bring your A-game to something when nine (or ninety) other disciplines are begging for your time and resources? Here's the dirty little secret we all know but are afraid to admit in public: you can't.

If you truly want to excel at something, you need two things to find your A-game:

1. You must know what discipline is most closely aligned with how you are hardwired.
2. You must spend focused time working on that discipline without the distraction of tackling other efforts.

Step 1: Define your Hardwiring

How do you 'closely align your hardwiring within your area of effort'? You identify what your hardwiring is. This step is surprisingly easy.

Complete a Core Values Index™ psychometric assessment — the most accurate and reliable online personality assessment in the world — which takes about 8 minutes to complete. You then read your assessment report and identify the core aspects (pun intended) of your personality.

Find out where your strengths lie.

Are you a natural-born leader? Is motivating groups your passion? Perhaps solving challenging problems is where your thrill lies, or gathering and sharing knowledge with others.

The reality is, each of us has a different combination or ratio of these personality types — core values — within us. It is your particular ratio of core values, combined with your life experiences, that make you unique.

Your CVI profile doesn't tell you what you're good at, though. It's not a measure of aptitude. Instead, the CVI identifies the kind of activities that make you happiest. It shows you the endeavors that will feel most natural to you.

The CVI shows you the kind of activities that are most closely aligned with your human operating system.

You've made the first step by taking the CVI and you now have the basic knowledge of your personality's DNA. Your CVI report has described the way you instinctively see the world and provided clarification about the kind of activities that will feel the most natural.

This gives you the information you need to pursue the endeavor and discipline that offers you the greatest chance of success.

Step 2: Focus your Effort

The hard part is ginning up the willpower and dedication needed to hone those skills. But it's not as hard as it may seem. Why? Because it will feel natural. You won't be a fish trying to climb a tree.

People who tackle jobs that are aligned with how they are hardwired are far more likely to excel. They will enjoy the endeavor and time will fly by.

In fact, we have found that employees hired to roles that are closely matched to their CVI psychometric profile using our Top Performer Profile™ often have 200% higher productivity and 50% or lower turnover. The data proves the value of psychometric alignment to the role and we see our clients benefit from this CVI+TPP combination on a daily basis.

If you want to find your A-game, take the CVI. Find where your natural strengths lie and spend your time focusing on those. Stop wasting your time pursuing disciplines that are counter to your human operating system.

Identify your strengths and then play to them. It may be the most natural thing you've ever done.

Core Values Index™ and CVI™ are trademarks of Taylor Protocols, Inc.