Finding Your Cape – Superpowers
Previous Posts in this series:
Finding Your Cape – Introduction
Finding Your Cape – Principles
Finding Your Cape – Meditations
Now we have laid the foundations by establishing our principles and values, it is time to discover our superpower…
Superpowers
Now is the time for us to explore super powers.
We started by looking at our principles and values because they create the foundation in our psyche that drives our behaviours. Our superpowers are the behaviours that we excel at.
We excel at things when the context and action taken is in alignment with our principles and values.
Knowing this helps us know where to look to discover our super powers.
To be clear, I am not talking about things like flying, being invisible or having x-ray vision, I am talking about real life superpowers that everyone has. We all have the “superist” thing we can do, and this is about working out what is super for you by looking within, not by comparing yourself to others.
Let’s look at some examples of what a super power could be:
- Consistently acting with empathy and compassion
- Being able to see the bigger picture
- Understanding complex theories
- Creativity in problem solving
- Playing a musical instrument – creative expression
- Never giving up
- Being hyper organised
- Always being genuinely polite and calm
- Knowing what to say to another human that needs support
- Taking risks
You see, a super power can be almost anything, and it is not necessarily a single skill. It is often a combination of skills and capabilities applies to a specific challenge.
This means that initially your search might now throw up any results because you are looking for the obvious “one thing” that you do, where instead you need to scan your experiences far and wide to spot the patterns in your behaviour that shine a light on your super power.
A Double-Edged Sword
Our greatest strength can often be our greatest weakness too.
If we have an ability that comes naturally to us, if left unchecked it can dominate our personality and behaviour. This means that our superpower can actually be an aspect of our psyche that we end up oppressing and shying away from to try and fit in.
The introspection toolkit has a whole is designed to help you to explore your inner world and bring your whole self in to the light. If you have not done so, I would recommend finding the time to review all of the tools and then revisit this one.
Our mind sees what we choose to focus on, but to focus on something we first need to be aware of it.
Make sure you have taken time to accept your whole self before you attempt to find your superpower, otherwise you may not see or be willing to accept the most authentic version of you.
Discovering your super power
Our superpower will be found at the intersect between what we are passionate about, what we find easy to focus on (time flies when we are doing it), and what we are good at.
Sounds simple?
Our passion will stem from our values. If you know your values, you may then observe that you are passionate about activities that enable you to act in alignment with them, or make them manifest in the world for other people.
If you are passionate about something, then often time will fly when you are engaged in an activity related to this thing, I say often, because the key for time to fly is for you to be good at something.
Now good is a relative term, because you cannot have good without bad. What I am not suggesting here is benchmarking your ability against other people. By good, what I mean is an activity which you have a basal amount of skill, and where you have observed this skill improving over time as you practice it. Good is simply that you are able to consistently observe yourself being better at the thing today than you were yesterday. If this growth is occurring, then you know you have a strength in this area.
Reflecting
With this context established, lets now look at a thought exercise to help you discover your super power.
To complete this exercise, set aside 15 minutes, and grab a pen and paper.
For each of these questions list out as many things a possible. Try not to overthink what you are writing, just allow the thoughts to come and let the words flow. If you start to dry up, move on to the next question.
Push yourself to cover all 8 questions in the 10 minutes.
- What have you achieved that you proud of?
- What skills do you have that you are proud of?
- What are you passionate about?
- What activities make time fly?
- If you had to list your top strengths, what would they be?
- What makes you unique?
- What did you do for fun when you were a child?
- If money did not matter, what would you be doing with your life?
Once you are done, put the paper down and go get some fresh air for a couple of minutes. If you are already outside, then just walk around a bit.
Once the time is up, return to the list and reflect objectively. Look through the list and ponder it as if it was describing someone else…
- Is there a pattern?
- What stands out?
- Write one sentence to describe this person.
- Describe in a few words, the unique skill this person has… what is their superpower?
What this could look like
As with the other exercises in this tool, I thought I would share my notes from competing this exercise within the time limit.
Hopefully this lets you see how you could approach this:
The main reason I have share this is to show you how simply this can be done. Just grab a sheet of paper and blast down your notes. Allow the pen to flow and the words to just spill on to the page.
Don’t think and judge, just flow.
Remember – Super is not so Super!
Talk of superpowers conjures up images of comic book superheroes and so bring an expectation that to be super at something, we must be exceptional or the best.
Well, I put it to you that we simply need to be the best that we can be, not the best in the world.
Complex systems in nature are comprised of many different parts all of which have their own function and contribute to the operation of the whole. Every part has its role to play.
Consider the concept of the butterfly effect where the act of a single flap of a butterfly’s wings could trigger a chain reaction that causes a hurricane on the other side of the world.
Every action we take influences the world around us no matter how big or small. The act of you discovering your super power and putting it in to action is you venturing on the journey you were born to live.
Your journey up to reading this right now is the journey you have been given.
Be grateful for this.
Always.
You may look back at your childhood dreams and regret the choices you have made and missed opportunities. That is your journey and you must accept it.
Looking forward, remember that change can happen in an instant and at any time, so it is never too late to take action to move you in a direction towards your authentic self. It is important to be realistic and pragmatic. You don’t need to sell your house and change your life completely (well you can if you want to!), you just need to take one small step today that moves your more towards embodying your authentic self than you were yesterday. One step at a time, one small change forged in yourself after another.
Be more authentic today than you were yesterday. Slowly strip away the layers to reveal your truth.
What is next?
Having a superpower is great, but it cannot be classed as a true power if it is not used and tested. In the next post we will explore your purpose and authentic self.
Enjoy, for now.