Discover Your Superpowers

Welcome to Expand Your Life Podcast. This is Jc Jones, and you’re listening to Episode 26. Welcome, everyone. I hope you had a great week.

Today we’re going to talk about finding your superpower. Do you know what your superpowers are? Well, hopefully by the end of this episode, you might have a better idea of what they might be.

Everyone has superpowers. Everyone has their own unique set of skills and talents that are unique to them. For any of you that are skeptical or don’t believe you have any useful superpowers, I’m here to prove you wrong. By the end of this episode, you will have a list of things that you are good at, you excel at, you have mastered, you are naturally talented in.

And you may even discover things that you didn’t realize that you had as a superpower in your life. A lot of the things that we are super talented at, we don’t even recognize as being a superpower.

So let’s get started.

First we’ll talk about the reason you may not even recognize your strengths, skills and talents. The reason for this is usually because you either think everyone has that skill, you don’t see that it’s an important skill or talent, or you’ve gotten into such a habit of dwelling on what you don’t have that you don’t recognize the things that you do have.

Maybe you’ve spent a lot of your life deflecting praise for a superpower that you have because the praise felt uncomfortable or you didn’t feel worthy of that praise. Have you ever found yourself saying, “Ah, it was nothing, no big deal”? That deflecting of praise is something that’s really common, but it negates the talents that we have and the skills that we’ve acquired.

Think back in your life where you’ve done something like that, where you’ve deflected praise that has been given to you. What was it that you were being praised for? Write it down. Especially if it’s something that multiple people over a period of time have praised you for. Write those things down.

Next, write down all the skills and talents that you are aware of in your life that you do know about, that you do know you have. Usually the natural talents that we have that we’ve had all of our lives are the easiest ones for us to recognize and to see.

These are lifelong talents that we’ve cultivated, and usually something that our parents saw in us at a young age and helped us get better at. If it was something like high school sports, but you didn’t take that any further than a high school, put that on the list too. If you felt like you had a talent in high school at basketball, but you didn’t play basketball in college or as an adult, put that on the list too.

Just because you haven’t pursued those talents in sometimes many years, doesn’t mean that that talent is not in you. Sure you might not go play for the N. B. A. But if you had a talent in basketball in high school, that is still a talent. So make sure you write that on your list.

Next on the list, write down all of the things that you’re known for. When you get together with your friends, what are you known for? Are you the clown or are you the storyteller? What are you known for?

Maybe you’re known for being the one that talks all the time. Maybe you’re the talker of the group. Maybe you’re the one that’s really good at telling a joke. Maybe you’re the one that all of your friends go to for advice or go to when they’re feeling down, because you have a talent for lifting someone’s spirit. write all these things down.

Next, think about what do you really desire? What really moves or motivates you? What lights you up? When you think about this thing, it sets your soul on fire. This might be something that takes a little bit of reflection to figure out, but everybody has a great passion or a great mover of your soul. Something that really energizes you and lifts you up. Makes you feel alive.

Next on the list are your likes and dislikes. I know you’re probably thinking, well, how can something I dislike prove to be a superpower? Well, the things that we dislike or really hate are usually the things that motivate us enough to want to create change in this world.

The things that we really believe, the values that we have about something and the injustices that we see in this world tend to motivate us to find solutions to help others. To create new ways of doing things and to basically create a movement of change.

So the things that you dislike are really important to put on your list of skills and talents. Not necessarily because we have a talent for creating change or starting a movement at this point in time in our lives, but by writing down the things that you dislike, you’re able to get a picture of possibility. Of the things that you can create as a superpower or as a talent or skill.

Many of us just can’t see outside of the box. But if you write all these things down and start thinking about where these things can lead you, what avenues these can open up for you.

And start asking yourself what you can do to create something new with it, something better. For not just yourself but everyone around you. That’s thinking outside of the box. That’s taking something unlikely and creating something big from it. So this is why it’s really important to put down these things on your list.

Okay, next on the list is what causes you to be impatient with others. Many times, the reason we become impatient when someone doesn’t get something or when we’re trying to show someone something, and they’re just not understanding, many times it’s because whatever that thing is, we find so simple that we believe everyone should find it just a simple as we do.

When in reality, that’s just not the case. You may think it’s easy, or you may think it’s just common sense. But to someone else, that may be a difficult concept or difficult to understand. So whatever those things are, write those on your list.

Next, write down your hobbies and your interests. What do you spend your free time doing? I can’t wait to get home to do blank. I can’t wait until my day off so I can do blank. Whatever that is. Whatever that might be for you. Write those things down.

Whether it’s crafts, working on your car, doing projects around the house, playing video games. Yeah, playing video games. I said it. Write it all down.

Next on the list will be your accomplishments and the things that you’re proud of that you’ve done in your life. What are some of the things that you’ve accomplished with your life? What are some of the things that you’ve done that you’re proud of? Write all of these things down.

And then once you write those things down, write down all the skills that it took in order to accomplish them. What skills did you have to learn? What skills did you have to become good at in order to accomplish those things? Go ahead and write those down now.

I know there’s a lot of things I’m having you write down on the list today. But trust me, It’s really worth it. And we don’t have too much further to go. The next one’s going to be a little bit deeper. A little bit more reflection might be needed for this one.

What experiences have you been through in your life that have taught you something? We don’t often think about the hard times in our life, or the failures that we’ve lived through or the mistakes that we’ve made as being something that can create in us superpowers or talents or skills.

But if you really think about each situation, each hard time you’ve been through, and ask yourself, “what have I learned from that”? You’re going to find some real skills that you’ve acquired because of having to deal with those situations.

Some of my greatest talents and skills that I have today are because of some of the mistakes I’ve made, some of the trials I’ve had to go through. But until I learned to look at each of those situations and find the learning in it and find the positive in it, I wasn’t able to even see it.

Because it was a traumatic situation or a negative situation in my mind, I only associated it with negativity. And I didn’t even notice or look for the positive. The learning experience.

The skills and talents that I acquired because of having to live through those experiences. So think back in your life at some of the hard times. Who have you become because of those circumstances?

Find the lesson in each of those circumstances you’ve lived through. Chances are you’re going to find many of your superpowers simply by looking at those experiences a little bit differently.

It might be something as simple as having gained empathy for others going through the same set of circumstances. Because you know what it feels like. You know what it feels like to go through those things. And so you now have empathy for others that are going through it also.

And because you’ve been through it and you’re on the other side of it now, you’ve also gained skills in how to deal with it, how to get past it. Those are all superpowers. Those are all talents and skills. So take some time to really look at the things that you’ve learned and write those down.

And the last one I want you to write down are your untapped skills. You’re untapped superpowers. And what I mean by that is, what are some of those things that you’ve always wanted to do but you haven’t gotten around to doing them? What are some things that you’ve always wanted to try that you haven’t tried yet? write all of those things down,

Many times, we have superpowers and skills and talents that we don’t even know about simply because we haven’t exposed ourselves to the things that would show us our superpower. So whatever those things are in your life that you’ve put off doing or forgot about or thought were out of your reach, write those things down now.

You should have quite a list in front of you.

In fact, I think to make it a little easier on you I’ll make you a little print out that you guys can print out of all the questions that I had you make your list from, so that you can look through it this next week until next week’s episode and kind of reflect on throughout the week and add to your list, because the more you think about it, the more you’re going to think about things and remember things that you can add to this list. So I think I’ll do that.

If you look at the show notes page for this episode, I’ll have a PDF of the questions I asked today that you can download and print out to help you with this list, because I know we went through it pretty fast today.

Now what do you do with your list? Well, I won’t let you be hanging for too long, but I am going to wait until next week’s episode to talk about that.

What I do want you to think about though, is look at your list in front of you. Look at any themes there might be on there or anything that’s repeated over and over again. Those are generally the things that you need to take notice of.

And start thinking outside of the box. What can you do with these superpowers? What can you do with these talents and skills that you may not have thought about before?

Who can you serve with these talents and skills? Who can you help? Think about those things this week and next week we’ll talk a little bit more about what you can do with your superpowers.

And remember, your superpowers are unique to you. You have them for a reason. So ask yourself what is the purpose for your unique superpowers? They are a part of your identity, part of what makes you you. They make you special. They make you different than anyone else around you.

Anyway, that’s enough for today. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you’ll get updates and notifications when new episodes are released.

Have a great week. Bye for now.