Robert RS Raff, founder of Robs Health & Fitness and the best-selling fitness author and personal trainer has written an excellent new eBook, "Play to Your Strengths", which is sure to be a bestseller. In this bestselling guide, Robert discusses how you can use your own personal strengths to achieve far more in life than most people realize. In particular, he reveals how using your strengths to play a unique and often-overlooked role in your life can help you to reach not only your fitness goals but your personal and professional goals as well. Play to your strengths!
The majority of people are aware that all human beings are unique individuals with their own strengths and weaknesses. However, very few people take advantage of their strengths. This is probably because they believe it is a negative word that indicates weakness. When you understand your strengths and weaknesses, and how they can help you achieve your goals, you will become aware of just one thing, and that one thing is that YOU are the most powerful individual in your given circumstance.
Robert presented this concept at the 2021 International conference on Health and Wellness Associations Annual Meeting held in Toronto, Canada. I was there and listened to several speakers who were experts in a variety of fields. One of them, Robert had written an interesting article about his experiences playing to his strengths. He shared with the group his story of gaining a ton of weight, losing it all, and then playing volleyball again to keep his metabolism high. What struck me as I read his story was that every time he stepped into the game, his metabolism kept high and his energy kept flowing, resulting in him reaching the goal set for him by the time he stepped out onto the court.
Playing to your strengths is a very powerful technique developed by Robert RS Rolf, also known as Robert C. Recreation Therapy practitioner and strength and conditioning expert. Robert first developed this concept over fifteen years ago using an e-mailing system called bulletin board, or simply bored. In his earliest years as a private developer and trainer, Robert never used email as a tool to communicate with people, but instead would walk up to people in the local gym and ask them questions about their exercise, diet, and lifestyle habits. After doing this for years, he began to receive questionnaires from people all over the world and through those questions, he gained insight into the way they were able to exercise, what kind of workout they did, and how they got results.
After doing much research on the best methods to use to develop one's personal strengths and weaknesses, he then developed a series of eight-step programs that can be done in thirty minutes each day. These programs are broken down into four main steps, each designed to address a specific area that individuals need to work on. If you want to tone up your abs, there is a program for that. If you want to strengthen your core, you have a core program; if you want to manage stress better, there's stress management.
The whole purpose of these programs is to help you develop a structured process for working on your strengths, which will in turn develop your personal willpower towards reaching your goals. One of the most important things that Robert teaches in his programs is that most people have a tendency to want to do things that are "easy" or "fast", but when you play to your strengths, you tend to have more control and power. Most of the time this comes down to having a positive feedback cycle. When you play to your strengths, you are constantly reinforcing your positive goals and thoughts. And when you get a positive feedback from this, it tends to stick around longer than negative feedback.
When you play to your strengths, you can also make your life easier. When you know your priorities, you're less likely to waste time, energy, and effort in unimportant activities or random actions that don't add value. For example: Let's say that you're going to take a few pictures with your family. Instead of focusing on whether or not you have enough batteries in the camera, let's say that you want to spend the time bonding with your family over something fun that you both love - instead of worrying about batteries, focus on bonding. Now, while taking those pictures you'll be using your creativity and your imagination, and you'll end up with the same result as you would if you had spent your time focusing on battery power.
All of the above examples are great ways to keep from wasting your time and energy on activities or things that won't bring you any real benefit. When you play to your strengths, you tend to get more done. When you play to your weaknesses, you waste your time and energy. When you play to your strengths, you find yourself with an "Achilles heel".
