Sweeten the Pot
It’s hard to believe that the holiday season is here. This is the time of year when Grandma’s recipes come out. You know the ones that make your mouth water just by reading them. Everything requires a stick of real butter and 2 cups of sugar. Not to mention those holiday parties, there’s something sweet at every event waiting just for you. Although this may satisfy your taste buds, getting to the sweetness of life can be a bitter journey for most. The path to sweeten your own pot for life may not be as straight forward as following Grandma’s recipe.
Sweetening the pot is about living in an environment that is conducive for you to operate in your Sweet Spot. Entrepreneur and author, Scott M. Fay, defines the Sweet Spot as the intersect of Purpose, Passion, and Plan. He goes on to further say, “Living to and from our Sweet Spot yields exponential potential.” (Scott M. Fay, Discovering Your Sweet Spot, The 7 Steps to Create a Life of Success and Significance, (New York, Morgan James Publishing, 2014)). As a trained chemist, I’d like to take this concept a step further by thinking of potential in terms of energy. Potential energy is defined as the energy possessed by a body as a result of its position or condition rather than its motion. If that is the case, being in an environment that allows you to operate in your Sweet Spot gives you more energy to carry out your destiny.
That increase in potential energy comes from the alignment of your efforts (what you do) with your talents (what you’re uniquely gifted to do). The awareness of my Sweet Spot has been one of trial and error. There were things I thought I would do well, only to find out I hated them, or I wasn’t good at them after all. Finding your Sweet Spot is a test of endurance and self-awareness. Our experiences, whether good or bad, give us insight that we can only get through reflection.
Do you know the Purpose and Plan for your life? Do you understand your Passion? Start by asking yourself a few questions:
What are your strengths?
What elements of your job/volunteer work excite you the most?
What strengths are you leveraging when performing the task, you listed above?
What element of your job/volunteer work that if removed you would miss the most?
I found that starting with these basic questions helped me to begin uncovering my Sweet Spot of adding value to people. I found that if this element was removed from my life, whether in the context of my job or volunteer work, there was a void. This has been a consistent theme throughout my life since childhood. I just wasn’t aware of it. As learned more about myself, I kept digging deeper until I found that intersect between Purpose, Passion, and Plan. My current profession as a Certified John Maxwell Coach is a reflection of that. Now it’s your turn. Are you sweetening your pot in life by putting yourself in an environment to operate in your Sweet Spot? If this is an area of growth for you, what steps will you take today to get to that level of clarity?
