How Do My Strengths and Weaknesses Stack Up?

If you’ve taken the Serial Winner Assessment, you might be wondering, How do my strengths and weaknesses compare to others who’ve taken the test? Or, I’m doing pretty good … right? Or maybe, Am I normal?

I’ve released some results in past posts and articles, but we have hundreds of participants now and more people are taking the test every day. If you haven’t yet, you should take the test before you read this post. It only takes 5 minutes, and it offers up good insights for your personal and professional development. You’ll receive an email right away with your results.

Now it’s time to look at what big takeaways we can gather from the data so far. Here are some resources for growing and improving.

Takeaway #1

People are pretty good at deciding
to go for what they want, but not so great at
setting themselves up to achieve it.

The action with the highest average score was Decide. People struggle with doubt (no surprise there) but they also set goals, aren’t overly influenced by others’ negative opinions, and pursue their curiosity. Those are all incredibly important if you want to live a fulfilling, exciting life.

One of the lowest scoring actions, though, is Overdo. This is all about getting off to the strongest start and dramatically improving your odds of success. The biggest hurdle for most people seems to be setting ambitious short-term goals that lead to big long-term goals. I wrote about how critical short-term goals are in the early days of any project in this post.

If this takeaway is true for you, you have to ask yourself, “Do I not know how to do it—how to launch successfully? Or is it that I don’t really want it?” If you start a lot of things and don’t make much progress, it’s possible you’re not going after the things you really want. Or maybe you’re just talking and wishing, not Deciding. Check out this post for some questions you can use to test your big goals.

If you’re struggling to develop momentum, start with these two posts:

• 5 ideas for making big wins almost inevitable
• How to launch with a blitz of activity

Takeaway #2

Most people don’t develop the systems they need
to win consistently.

Winners use systems to save time, money, and energy. Because of their systems, winners accomplish repetitive tasks better, faster, more efficiently, and with a lot less mental energy than people who don’t have good systems. That gives them extra resources to use to go after their bigger, more important goals.

In the assessment, I included three statements that relate to systems, and they are among the lowest scoring items on the test. The most revealing is this one: “I continue to face the same struggles in my work or life, even though I keep expecting things to get easier the more I do them.” Almost 60% of people agree or strongly agree that things aren’t getting easier the more they do them. Why? Because they aren’t developing systems to make that happen!

If you’re one of those people who isn’t good at developing systems and find yourself reinventing the wheel each time you tackle the same task, make the time to get better. I’ve written about why systems are a critical tool for winners, but will be offing more content on building better systems in your life.

Takeaway #3

People recognize that they may have to make trade-offs
to achieve a goal, but they aren’t willing to compromise
their ethics or principles.

I have to say, I was very happy to see this result. The two highest scoring questions relate to sacrificing less important things and to refusing to take shortcuts or put aside principles to achieve goals.

It proves the point I made in Serial Winner: True winners—and that includes most winners, despite what the media might have you believe—don’t cheat or lie their way to the top. Most of us recognize the huge potential downside to putting our ethics aside for a little progress.

Takeaway #4

The one action of winners that people
struggle with the most is “Keep Improving.”

While takeaway #3 made me pretty happy, this result makes me very worried.

Every other part of the Cycle of Winning is important, but Keep Improving is the difference between winning occasionally and winning consistently. It’s so important that I’m going to focus the next few posts on it—why it’s okay to feel awkward at the beginning of any new project or goal, how to attract the best coaches or mentors, and more.

So how do you compare when you ask, How do my strengths and weaknesses stack up? Are these takeaways true for you? I would enjoy hearing what you learned from your assessment results and what action you took. Consider sharing your experiences in the comments. I’ll read every one and use them to develop more information that addresses your specific concerns.