Welcome to the New Year!  I hope you're off to an encouraging start.

If we could sit together at Panera, what would be your greatest need in 2014?  What are your areas of focus?  How would you like to grow and develop professionally and personally?

My encouragement to you is this: Spend 2014 investing in your strengths!

Don't write up New Year's resolutions about overcoming your weaknesses.  Don't spend this year trying to become someone you're not (but think you should be).  Don't fall into the trap of trying to be "omni-competent."

Instead, look for specific ways to invest in your strengths, becoming a stronger version of you.  There is a three-step process to making this happen.

#1: Identify the strengths you want to develop

I often ask clients to identify their individual strengths.  For some the list grows long quickly, while others sit staring at their papers without writing.  Once I had a woman say that her greatest strength was "having great hair."  Now if she had been the star of shampoo commercials I might have accepted this response, but given her place of employment and her role, I pushed back.

The problem for many is that strengths are transparent.  People don't see their own strengths and overestimate the commonness of their abilities.  "Connecting easily with new people" may not sound like much, but it is a significant challenge for many.  "I decorate cookies well."  Ever visited a bake sale?  There are fewer of you than you realize.

Many don't see the value in their strengths.  My daughter and I had a conversation recently about snapshots and photography.  Anyone with a decent phone can take snapshots, but it takes a creative eye to be a photographer.  I read a book on photography once where the author argued that many great pictures are never captured because a person defaults to shooting everything at eye level.  Lying on the ground or climbing a tree alters the perspective and may move the picture from snapshot to photography.  The point: Having a creative eye is not the same as owning a great camera (I am evidence of this).  Don't allow the commonness of an activity to dissuade you from seeing it as a strength for you.  Just because many do something doesn't change the fact that few do it well.

#2: Invest in these specific strengths

The origin of the word "invest" has to do with being clothed or adorned with symbols of an office, to be given authority.  "By the authority vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife."  Clergymen wear vestments.

With what strengths would you like to cover yourself this year?  In what areas would you like to be an authority, to operate from a position of strength?

As we know from the "The Emperor's New Clothes," it is possible to believe one stands adorned when one stands naked.  This is a reminder both that we may not be the best judges of our strength's maturation and that we must be careful that the training or validation we pursue is real.

Covering yourself in strength requires time, effort, and, often, money.  In your professional development stop trying to minimize your expenses and look for ways to invest in your growth.  For example, figure out a percentage of your revenue that you want to invest back into the growth of your business and each year look for creative ways to invest that money.  With many businesses your revenue will grow at a faster rate than your expenses because of increasing efficiencies.  So the real dollars available to be invested creatively into your business will continue growing - your strengths will grow stronger, your authority will increase, and your vestments will be more visible.

Need ideas?  Go get training.  Do work at cost in an area you are developing.  Take time each day for a specific growth activity.  Find a mentor who is farther down the path you seek to travel. Buy a new tool.

Avoid the trap of "good enough."  Don't allow yourself to be satisfied with your strengths as they exist today.  You should always be growing and pushing yourself to improve in your areas of strength.

#3: Use these strengths to impact others for good

This is the easiest to express and the most important to do - use your strength to impact others for good.  Painting masterpieces that you burn for warmth may bring limited pleasure and practical benefit, but your scope is too narrow.  Share masterpieces and burn wood.  Make sure your strengths are outwardly focused.  The minister's vested authority to marry only takes on meaning as a man and woman stand before him and are wed.

Don't wait to serve others.  "Once I am ready" or "Once the desired audience comes along" are poor excuses.  Serve those standing before you today and who knows who you will have the opportunity to serve tomorrow.