I always draw parallels between my professional and personal life. Anything, one learns in their professional life can be customized and applied to their personal life but vice versa may not be true. So here is one such topic called SWOT Analysis. The interesting thing is, you can use SWOT analysis personally for self awareness & personal development without having to spend considerable amount of time, breaking your head.
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Basic Definition:
SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
Who uses SWOT analysis professionally?
SWOT analysis is a tool for auditing and analyzing an organization, environment and individuals. SWOT analysis is the first stage of planning which helps professionals, managers and marketers to focus on key issues. Also from the IT industry perspective, we use this analysis for performance appraisal & feedback of any individual.
What is the aim of SWOT analysis?
The aim is to turn our weaknesses into strengths, and our threats into opportunities. The outcome of the analysis should be an increase in ‘value’ for customers/individuals.
How to use SWOT in personal life?
Doing a SWOT analysis of your life can give you a clear picture of who you are and the opportunities you have for your life. It will help you identify where you need to improve, and more importantly allows you to identify your internal strengths, that you can capitalize on to grab your opportunities and prevent any external threats.
It is also an essential key in your day-to-day decision making in your personal life. Before you decide to buy that expensive product, evaluate the impact of what can happen when you make that decision. You may find out that you will prevent yourself from making the wrong choice.
There are 4 steps to SWOT:
1)Write down:
Take a paper and divide it into four quarters. Label each area as S, W, O, T. Identify the area of your life that you are gonna address via SWOT.
[I have taken an example of "A typical Food Blogger's anxiety" to illustrate this analysis, instead of getting too personal - Write down the answers to following questions(you can come up with any number & type of questions) in the allotted quarter.]
The problem is half solved already, when you know what you have and what you don't. Yes, writing or jotting down is the first step towards achieving any goals. It is not without any reason that people take notes while in a meeting or a conference. Richard Branson, still runs around carrying a small notebook(in the era of phablets and tablets), to take note of anything and everything important that he comes across.
2)Think laterally and get a third person's opinion:
Sometimes the strengths that you have, may not look like a unique quality to you - but a third person(say a friend) can help you realize the strength or weakness. You may also want to get people who are close to you to share their perspective, especially on your strengths and weaknesses.
3)Understanding the concept of "One quality leading to another":
Remember one thing, strengths tend to lead to opportunities and weaknesses tend to lead to threats.
For example, if a weakness that you have is that, your cooking skills are limited to one particular cuisine(say South Indian), the threat might be that there is only so much that you can do with one type of cooking, which means in some time you are gonna run out of ideas(so that is a threat). The opportunity is that you can learn a different cuisine and turn that into your strength.
4)Apply the findings:
Once the list is ready, you need to look for ways to apply your findings. You can start applying your findings by asking questions about each quadrant. For example you can ask: How can you use your strengths to maximize your potential? How can you get rid off your weakness? How can you find opportunity? How can avert threats? The answers to these questions will help you with the strategies for achieving your goals.
You should have a much clearer perspective about who you are, where you are headed, and what opportunities you need to pursue, once you are done with applying the findings. Try out when you have sometime, perhaps it will help.
Image courtesy: Google
.jpg)
SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
Who uses SWOT analysis professionally?
SWOT analysis is a tool for auditing and analyzing an organization, environment and individuals. SWOT analysis is the first stage of planning which helps professionals, managers and marketers to focus on key issues. Also from the IT industry perspective, we use this analysis for performance appraisal & feedback of any individual.
What is the aim of SWOT analysis?
The aim is to turn our weaknesses into strengths, and our threats into opportunities. The outcome of the analysis should be an increase in ‘value’ for customers/individuals.
How to use SWOT in personal life?
Doing a SWOT analysis of your life can give you a clear picture of who you are and the opportunities you have for your life. It will help you identify where you need to improve, and more importantly allows you to identify your internal strengths, that you can capitalize on to grab your opportunities and prevent any external threats.
It is also an essential key in your day-to-day decision making in your personal life. Before you decide to buy that expensive product, evaluate the impact of what can happen when you make that decision. You may find out that you will prevent yourself from making the wrong choice.
There are 4 steps to SWOT:
1)Write down:
Take a paper and divide it into four quarters. Label each area as S, W, O, T. Identify the area of your life that you are gonna address via SWOT.
[I have taken an example of "A typical Food Blogger's anxiety" to illustrate this analysis, instead of getting too personal - Write down the answers to following questions(you can come up with any number & type of questions) in the allotted quarter.]
Strength
Qn: Which areas do I excel in?
Ans: Cooking
Qn: What skills and capabilities do I possess?
Ans: Presentation, Photography
Weakness
Qn: What skills do I need to develop?
Ans: Networking, SEO, Social Media
Qn: Which personal difficulties do I need to work through to reach my goals?
Ans: Being regular, taking care of family & kids, time constraint, coming up with innovative ideas for cooking.
Opportunities
Qn: Which circumstances can help me achieve my goals?
Ans: Managing time efficiently by plotting couple of hours everyday to blogging(having a schedule),
following number of blogs to get inspired to further innovate the cooking style.
Qn: What could be the outcome, if I fulfil the above answer?
Ans: A balance between blogging and personal life, bringing steady flow of audiences, making bucks via advertisements.
Threats
Qn: What obstacles am I currently facing?
Ans: Dearth of creative ideas.
Qn: Which fears are holding me back?
Ans: Fear of not being regular, Fear of loosing audience, Fear of uncertainty.
The problem is half solved already, when you know what you have and what you don't. Yes, writing or jotting down is the first step towards achieving any goals. It is not without any reason that people take notes while in a meeting or a conference. Richard Branson, still runs around carrying a small notebook(in the era of phablets and tablets), to take note of anything and everything important that he comes across.
2)Think laterally and get a third person's opinion:
Sometimes the strengths that you have, may not look like a unique quality to you - but a third person(say a friend) can help you realize the strength or weakness. You may also want to get people who are close to you to share their perspective, especially on your strengths and weaknesses.
3)Understanding the concept of "One quality leading to another":
Remember one thing, strengths tend to lead to opportunities and weaknesses tend to lead to threats.
For example, if a weakness that you have is that, your cooking skills are limited to one particular cuisine(say South Indian), the threat might be that there is only so much that you can do with one type of cooking, which means in some time you are gonna run out of ideas(so that is a threat). The opportunity is that you can learn a different cuisine and turn that into your strength.
4)Apply the findings:
Once the list is ready, you need to look for ways to apply your findings. You can start applying your findings by asking questions about each quadrant. For example you can ask: How can you use your strengths to maximize your potential? How can you get rid off your weakness? How can you find opportunity? How can avert threats? The answers to these questions will help you with the strategies for achieving your goals.
You should have a much clearer perspective about who you are, where you are headed, and what opportunities you need to pursue, once you are done with applying the findings. Try out when you have sometime, perhaps it will help.
Image courtesy: Google
Interesting and useful article :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Aara!
DeleteSomething I do as I move on with life all the time. Also, we need to do the analysis for our own personal process. I wish I can share my SWOT application with my organisation but at my level, its about following and abiding what has been set at the top.
ReplyDeleteIndeed Nava! It is very crucial to analyse ourselves once in a while and see where we are headed. But as you said, sharing our personal analysis with Management would be something they would not like to hear per se. But you know, we can utilize this on the people who are reporting to us, like I said on a "Performance Appraisal" of the year. This will help narrow down all the qualities of an individual.
DeleteI've never heard SWOT before, but these are all really excellent tips that I think we all must know! Thanks for sharing your knowledge Pavithra :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks Nilu!
DeleteA totally new concept,thanks for sharing :) I could apply this to lots of things in life right now :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Reni!
DeleteGreat article! I have also found a very easy to use Personal SWOT Analysis Example that was very helpful to me!
ReplyDeleteVery well explain personal swot is just as important as a business swot diagram. It would have been even better if a swot analysis tool was posted here. I add creately here a swot diagram software that can be used to create swot diagrams.
ReplyDeleteRegards,
Shalin