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I hear a lot of reflections about how to apply your CliftonStrengths talent theme of Achiever\\xa0to your career.

In this series, you get one strength per post so that you can add to the insights from your StrengthsFinder report and make an even stronger alignment between your current job and your strengths.

- If you\\u2019re exploring this concept as a manager, use this series for career development ideas and even new clues about responsibilities you could give a person with this talent theme so that they can show up at their best.

- If you\\u2019re exploring this concept for yourself, use this as a chance to build a reputation for your strengths so that you\\u2019re more likely to be given assignments that live in your strengths zone.

You\\u2019ll get three layers to chew on:

1. Career Branding
2. Red Flag Situations At Work
3. Fresh Application Ideas

Career Branding When Achiever Is Your Strength

You probably already have a reputation for what you know. Think about your personal resume, CV, or your LinkedIn profile, I bet it\'s full of \\u201cthe what,\\u201d which are things like job titles, skills, knowledge, expertise, or the degree you earned. What\\u2019s missing is usually "the how,\\u201d and this is where your StrengthsFinder talent themes live.

Chances are good that you are a lot like my StrengthsFinder training clients, where you don\\u2019t physically see your teammates and customers every day. So many of us work on remote teams. That\\u2019s why LinkedIn has become so important for career branding. It\\u2019s how your teammates, customers, and vendors go look you up before a meeting - to see who they\\u2019re about to talk to. And rather than only telling them what you know, you should also give them a peek at how it is to work with you.

Here are a bunch of Achiever-related adjectives to consider using in your career branding efforts and your LinkedIn profile:

• Producer
• Doer
• Busy
• Finisher
• Energetic
• Motivated
• Completer
• Workhorse
• Tireless
• Gets It Done
• Ambitious
• Intense
• Driven
• Independent
• Pacesetter

Red Flag Situations For Achiever

These are the cultures, interactions, or situations that might feel like soul-sucking drudgery to someone with the talent theme of Achiever. They could even make you want to quit the team if they get really bad. So I\\u2019ll give you a couple of these to be on watch for \\u2014 because if they fester, you might become detached or disengaged at work.

Here are two Red flags for Achiever:

1. Slackers. If you lead through Achiever, try to keep yourself out of environments where you perceive your colleagues to be slackers or lazy. Sometimes, this is a simple thing to spot. For example, say you\\u2019re on a team, and you have a teammate you work with very closely. You perceive him to be a low-accountability-slacker (albeit a nice guy). If this is someone you\\u2019re working with all day every day, you\\u2019ll likely be frustrated as you imagine all of the things you could get done together, if he\\u2019d just pull his weight. A sneakier version of this is when you\\u2019re at a company or in an industry that moves at a slow pace. The Achiever in you will likely feel continual angst about what you could be getting done. This consistent \\u201cif only\\u201d thinking can really drain you. Whenever possible, surround yourself with high-achieving, driven colleagues who will match your intensity and motivate you to step your game up.
2. Meetings About Meetings. If you lead through Achiever, you likely love getting the actual work done. If you find yourself caught up in circular discussions or bureaucracy, it can be soul sucking for you. If you keep getting invited to meetings because you\\u2019re involved in a lot of projects (and therefore people think you\\u2019ll want to attend to stay in the loop), practice ways of politely opting out. Of course, the culture around meetings can be vastly different from company to company. Play with different techniques until you find something that honors your team culture, and honors your work style at the same time. For example, some Achievers have successfully created the habit of \\u201cpopping in\\u201d for the 10 minute segment of the 1 hour meeting so that they\\u2019re not wasting 50 minutes of their productive time. Others have become expert at declining the meeting altogether\\u2014while also contributing to the project and staying in good graces with the team.

3 Fresh Application Ideas for Achiever

These are ways to apply the talent theme of Achiever at work, even when the job duties on the team feel pretty locked in. If you\\u2019re exploring this concept as a team manager, be sure to have a conversation around these ideas. You\\u2019ll both be able to come up with places to apply them.

For someone who leads through Achiever, put this talent to good use with one of these options:

1. Small Bits. Although you have a lot of work stamina and you can crush it on long term projects, you\\u2019ll have more fun when you give yourself a way to feel the feeling of \\u201cdone-done-done\\u201d throughout the day. Get in the habit of writing down your next small action that matters for a project. Break it down to the tiniest step so that you can get a little hit of Achiever-dopamine when you finish it. For example, if your project is to research and recommend a new piece of software for the team, you could be looking at a 3 year implementation. If your next action is \\u201cschedule online demo\\u201d and the next action after that is \\u201cattend online demo,\\u201d you can turn the 3-year-long-slog into digestible pieces that give you a motivating jolt of accomplishment.
2. Power Hour. Try blocking out one hour on your calendar where you plan to crank out as many tactical tasks as possible. Don\\u2019t take calls. Get rid of all interruptions. Don\\u2019t look at email or IM. Simply crank out work. If this sounds like fun, you can also try the Pomodoro Technique, where you do intense spurts of work for 15-25 min, followed by a 5 min break. My favorite is an hour long cycle of (15 min work + 5 min break)x3. That gets you one hour of amazingly productive time. If you work in a distraction-heavy environment, these short cycles can help you feel super efficient, even when it seems like the world is conspiring against your personal effectiveness.
3. Contests. Measure yourself doing a task that you do regularly. Maybe you make outbound calls. Maybe you write social media marketing posts. Maybe you reply to a lot of emails. Track yourself doing one of these things to get a Personal Record (PR). Then, week over week, challenge yourself to beat your PR while maintaining high quality. The contest makes it fun, and since Achievers are often the last ones at the office, it\\u2019s a great way to keep yourself out of the workaholic zone.

Here\'s Your Personal Branding Homework

1. Go take action on your LinkedIn profile with the career branding section. Challenge yourself to write one sentence in the About section of LinkedIn that captures how you collaborate as a teammate at work.
2. Then think over the red flags to see if there\\u2019s anything you need to get in front of before it brings you down. You might decide to make the situation mean something different, or pre-plan a reaction for the next time it comes around.
3. And finally, volunteer your talents through the application ideas. If you\\u2019re a manager, have a conversation with your team members about which of these things sound like something they\\u2019d love to have more of.