Conduct an Individual SWOT Analysis with Ease
How to Do Personal SWOT Analysis
Carrying out an individual SWOT Analysis puts a powerful tool at your disposal to develop action plans to achieve personal and professional objectives. Every person is like a "brand", also requiring self-analysis and "marketing" in order for himself to improve and succeed. This is a great way to learn the inner side of you and warn you to be always careful about your bad behavior which may cause failure.
Step 1. Define Your Aspiration and Goals
First of all, define your aspiration and goals. Don't just do what boss tell you to do you need to take the initiative. Don't just rely on luck and hope but take control of you own life. Take some time and think about these questions deeply.
- What were my hopes and dreams in childhood?
- What are the things that matter to me in life?
- What can make me feel happy and fulfilled?
- What am I good at accomplishing?
- What are the things I don't like to do?
- What personalities I don't want myself to have?
- Three to five years from now, what kind of person do I want to be? What could I envision myself doing? What would I like to have achieved?
Step 2. Set Goals Properly
Secondly, after thinking about these questions, you are ready to figure out your goals, which are the step-stones and motivation to your destination. Although we often say that anyone is possible to become the next president, you need to define goals properly to be effective. Here is a useful technique - S.M.A.R.T.
S - Specific. Goals should be explicit and detailed. You had better divide them into many small goals and obtain one at a time.
M - Measurable. You ought to set goals with specific outcome against which you can measure the progress.
A - Attainable. To stretch yourself doesn't mean to press yourself too hard. Have reasonable and practical goals.
R - Relevant. Avoid meaningless goals.
T - Time-bound. Define the deadline to accomplish your objectives otherwise you may be dragged behind by laziness.
Step 3. Carry out SWOT Analysis Based on Goals
Then, analyze your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats according to your goals. Here is an example for your reference.
Strengths
To help you learn your strengths, think yourself as a brand in the competitive marketplace. What are your selling points? What are customers' requirements? A personal strength is an asset to you as a product and can be used as a way to stand out from others when interviewing or trying to obtain your other goals. Examples of strengths: Strong project management skills, foreign language proficiency, experience and training in presenting to large audiences, proven successful sales abilities and so on.
Weaknesses
No man is perfect. No awareness of your shortcoming can be annoying and lead to failures. Just imagine you are dating with the one you adore. If you are often late, lose control of your temper, do not listen to and even do not respect your partner, you may be abandoned (get fired in job market).
Opportunities & Threats
Picture yourself as an athlete in competition, then judge be as objective as possible. You can also ask other's opinions. Or take advantage of the performance assessment results from your current company. Try to seizing every opportunity and determine methods to overcome threats. For instance, your opponent has got strong body, you can think about doing more exercises. In contrary, you can move faster for body flexibility. You may not be as experienced as the competitor so you should learn from him and other players. But at the same time, you may be able to endure heavier pressure for youth. In a word, your threats may be your opportunities meanwhile, if you look at it from another perspective. And your opportunities will slip away soon if you don't capture them soon enough.
To recap the general goal of individual analysis is to polish your personality, improve your thinking way, refine your behavior and enhance your working method so that you can have greater success and better life. It is truly worthy of doing. Why not have your own SWOT Matrix?
Blank SWOT Analysis Templates
Edraw has built in many predefined SWOT Matrix symbols, eliminating the need to draw shapes. Users can save a lot of time thanks to the drag-and-drop function. Check out these amazing shapes below.
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