If you’ve ever taken a business class in high school or college, you’re probably familiar with the term “SWOT Analysis”. If you need a refresher, SWOT stand for:
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
This model is used to analyze companies. The same basic model can be used to analyze your own life. In your own life, you have strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, too.
It’s an interesting and very effective way of viewing your life. You’re bound to learn a few things about your situation that you’ve never considered.
Try viewing your life like a business:
1. Identify your strengths.
Businesses have strengths, and so do you. What are your strengths? Are you great at influencing people? Do you have stellar computer programming skills? Are you amazing when it comes to learning new languages?
What are you better at than nearly everyone else you know? Make a list and don’t quit until you’ve considered every possible strength you may have.
2. Develop a plan to maximize and utilize your strengths.
How can you utilize those strengths? Is there a profession that’s tailor-made for you? If you’re facing a tough decision, which option takes the greatest advantage of your strengths?
Create a plan for growing your greatest strengths. You’ll be more effective if you have one of two amazing strengths, even if you have many weaknesses, than if you’re merely average at everything.
3. Identify your weaknesses.
What are your weaknesses? Again, make a list. Most people don’t want to think about their weaknesses, but you don’t want to be like most people. What are those things that you don’t do as well as most other people? Write them down.
4. Develop a plan to mitigate your weaknesses.
Avoid your weaknesses as much as you can. When developing a course of action, stay away from your weaknesses. If a weakness can’t be avoided, then it’s necessary to address that weakness and improve in that area.
5. Identify your opportunities.
What are the greatest opportunities in your life? Maybe you have significant financial resources and can invest your money better. Or, perhaps you have a lot of free time that you could be using more effectively.
Do you have friends with skills that you admire? What does the job market look like for someone with your skills and experience? Does your family have connections?
6. Develop a plan to leverage those opportunities.
Again, make a plan. Given your opportunities, strengths, and weaknesses, how can you best take advantage of those opportunities?
7. Identify the threats in your life.
What are the threats in your life? Is it debt? Do you work for a company that’s struggling? A bad relationship? A health issue? Are you close to someone who is breaking the law? Do you have a boss that dislikes you?
What are the things in your life that are likely to reach up and bite you someday?
8. Develop a plan to neutralize those threats.
How can you eliminate, or minimize, these threats? Address the largest threat and work your way down. Dealing with these issues will go a long way toward enhancing your peace of mind. It’s the threats in life that cause anxiety and keep us awake at night.
Analyze your life the way a business strategist would analyze a company. Identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Then, formulate a plan for your life that takes all of these items into consideration. It’s a unique way of looking at your life. It’s also very effective. Imagine the results of analyzing your life in this way. Give it a try.
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