Forget the "small talk" (Lighting up your superpowers = happier work)
Psychological research has shown time and time again that identifying what I call “Superpowers” increases life satisfaction EVEN reducing depression for up to 6 months.
Imagine the impact it would have on work happiness, if you spent all of your time at work using your newly identified Superpowers...eh? Spending time at work doing things that you love…and that you’re great at…and getting paid for it? Well….that sounds like heaven to me!
How to recognise a super-powered moment
This is the moment that one of my superpowers lit up enough for me to take note:
Mid-thirties.
Girl’s weekend away.
French Alps.
Oldest of school friends from Northern Ireland.
These girls knew me as a teenager…as a student…as a tax-paying adult...
I was mid-30s when I discovered one of my superpowers, but not everyone enjoyed it! Old friends.
I vividly remember a wine-fuelled conversation, when all of them moaned in complaint at my intensive deep questioning about their/our life goals.
“Bloody hell Lucia…give us a break!”
In truth, they might have used slightly stronger language!
They’d had enough of my questions. It was exhausting for them.
Not for me though. For as long as I can remember, I’ve never been overly comfortable, or even good at, small talk…but I LOVE “big talk”.
Something lights up within me when I am having a conversation about anything that really matters with another human.
Often, one or more of those involved in this “big talk”, exposes something intimate and personal that they hadn’t meant to expose.
These moments hit my emotion sensors like an electric shock.
I simply feel MORE ALIVE
Once I realised that these “big talk” conversations excited me, I appeared to have loads more of them, either through luck or through design.
I have some of the most amazing conversations in the weirdest of places – at the supermarket checkout, on the train, at funerals, in the bike shop and very recently, in a carpark with an unusually upbeat and charismatic Sussex traffic warden.
I don’t exactly know how I do it.
I think it involves asking at least one more question than is socially acceptable in our very polite society!
It also involves having zero fear of the answers. I now know why I do it – it makes me feel alive.
Maybe there are other reasons, but I don’t care, as this one is enough to drive me towards doing it at every opportunity.
I consider this to be one of my superpowers.
Just because you love using your superpowers doesn’t mean they do…
Did I forget to mention that not all superpowers are loved by everyone around you?
My husband rarely wants to be on the receiving end of my “big talk” after a long day at work. Clark Kent didn’t use his superpowers all the time, did he? Just when he needed, or wanted, to use them. But he appeared to be ‘in the zone’ when he was using them.
Would you agree? You can choose when and to whom you show your superpowers.
So, what exactly is a Superpower?
Here are three major superpower categories:
Something that people often come to you to for help with
Something that you do better than others, regardless of others’ opinions (see above), and it doesn’t drain the life out of you
Something that you love doing so much that you would do it for free
They are all self-explanatory, but often clients struggle with this straight off the bat. So, here are some examples from both clients and friends.
Examples of real superpowers
Something that people often come to you to for help with
a. One of E’s' superpowers, is to speedily put love and warmth into a room by using some ‘internal design eye’. The day before the photographer arrived to take photos, when we were putting our house on the market, E dropped over with a couple of hastily-grabbed items from her home. She transform my minimalistic, and slightly cold, living room into a warm, cosy want-to-cuddle-up-here-on-a-Saturday-night snug.
It took her about 20 seconds and I could see she loved doing it. A pretty obvious superpower to me, but she doesn’t really use this superpower at work…yet.
Something that you do better than others, regardless of others’ opinions and doesn’t drain the life out of you
a. One of T’s superpowers is her ability to link detailed and accurate numbers to the big picture, better than most people in her business. This superpower made her feel great internally when she got to use it. She felt valued by others when they saw what she was able to do. She realised that this superpower wasn’t being used at all in her role at the time. This knowledge helped her to decide to move into a new division of her current business. One where her superpower would be viewed as crucial to the success of many specific projects, thereby allowing her to feel valued every single day.
b. One of C’s Superpowers is the ability to draw stunning images of building designs, which far exceed anything his competitors offered. The discovery of his superpower is now driving his marketing activities. It allows him to win more of the type of historical restoration work which he adores. Surprisingly, he did these drawings whilst sitting in his living room, chatting with his wife and children in the evening, because they didn’t require absolute silence or absolute focus…superpowers often don’t.
c. One of A’s superpowers was to boldly take what others perceived as “knee-jerk/flighty” risks, to keep her successful business in constant growth. It transpired that these decisions were all analysed in great depth. The problem was that she could do this 360 degree analysis faster than anyone around her believed was possible. She is now beginning to point those “instinctive” analytical, opportunity-seeking business skills at a new exciting sector – a sector that she has always been interested in, but was advised against all of her life.
(As an aside, if you read my article on the impossibility of taking advice from others you’ll understand why she returns to her youthful goal.)
Something that you love doing so much that you would do it for free.
a. One of M’s superpowers is a rare ability to get people who don’t want to change, to change…happily. G can get people to contribute to big company systems, and process change projects with absolute ease…seeing obstacles as new opportunities. When she spends long days convincing senior resistors to jump on board her change bus, she comes home invigorated, excited, ready to take on the world. Her children benefit from this energy.
Let me be clear, M would not do this for free – it is work after all. But, she would accept lower pay on those days, if she got higher pay on the days she had to do all the other pieces of work, pieces she doesn’t now consider as utilising her superpower. What a perfect world that would be!
So what?
My personal research is in absolute agreement with the psychological research i.e. using your some of/all of/most of your superpowers at work makes a big difference to your happiness at work.
It also makes a big difference to what’s left over at the end of the working day - for the rest of your family and friends.
Some people can just find their superpowers by listing responses to the above three categories. More often, it takes a deeper-dive into those activities to find the underlying drivers behind a skill, strength or talent. This then elevates it to a superpower.
Your superpowers…
If you are interested in lighting up your superpowers in your work, have a look at:
If you’re itching to get started, book in for a free 30min Light at the end of my Tunnel call. I guarantee to give you two personalised recommendations to kick-start your new career design.
