Businesses do SWOT analysis to understand their true potential, to know their strengths and weaknesses so they can work on those areas to improve themselves. Every business does this analysis before they actually start working on the plan as the analysis shows them the truth and helps them prepare better.
The same analysis we individuals can do to know our strengths & weaknesses, to understand what we are capable of. What do we need to improve? What we should do? What we shouldn’t be focusing on?
SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It clearly shows you the reality when you analyze yourself considering these 4 parameters. It helps you plan better for your life and career. Let’s understand each one by one:
- Strengths – Know your strengths and work more towards them to be great at. When we are aware of our strengths it boosts our confidence which is needed to do better in life in any field.
- Weaknesses – Note down your weaknesses and work towards those to improve. When we are aware of our weaknesses, we know what exactly we are lacking or what are the bottlenecks hindering our growth that we need to fix.
- Opportunities – We don’t know what opportunity we can get in the future, but calculating that by considering your strengths and plan gives you the confidence to achieve that; if you work hard on those you will surely get that. You can meet an exciting opportunity you may not have thought of so keep working on your strengths, goals, and plans.
- Threats – We don’t know the future, anything can happen to our lives, careers, and businesses, but anticipating those issues/threats can help you plan for your future and avoid bigger problems.
For example, if you are an IT engineer, your strengths could be you are great at coding, have good experience, and have some big certifications. You may have some weaknesses as well, such as weak communication, and bad team management that you can fix by learning and doing such courses. You may get a better opportunity in the future because of your strengths. But still, there are some threats, you could lose your job because of disciplinary issues or bad behavior so when you anticipate threats you can prepare yourself better to handle these uncertainties.
