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Welcome to the Overgivers Anonymous podcast hosted by Angela Mondor, also known as the Geeky Girl. In this episode, Angela delves into the concept of SWOT analysis, providing neurodivergent-friendly strategies for mastering it.
Highlights:
- Understanding SWOT Analysis: Angela introduces the concept of SWOT analysis, explaining its relevance in strategic planning for businesses and personal growth.
- Exploring Multiple Perspectives: SWOT analysis enables individuals to view situations from various angles, identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
- Applicability Beyond Business: While commonly used in corporate settings, SWOT analysis can be applied to personal endeavors such as relationships or skill development, offering valuable insights.
- Identifying Analytical Focus: Angela emphasizes the importance of defining the subject of analysis, whether it’s a business, personal goal, or relationship.
- Structuring the Analysis: Angela outlines the four components of a SWOT analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and illustrates how to organize them visually.
- Scaling Analysis: SWOT analysis can be tailored to different scopes, from evaluating overall business strategies to assessing individual tasks or skills.
- Mitigating Weaknesses and Threats: Rather than striving for perfection, Angela advises focusing on leveraging strengths and mitigating weaknesses and threats through practical strategies.
- Action Planning: The analysis serves as a basis for developing actionable plans, enabling individuals to address identified areas for improvement.
- Flexibility in Pursuing Opportunities: While seizing opportunities is encouraged, Angela advises ensuring alignment with overarching goals to maintain focus and avoid distractions.
- Embracing Neurodivergent Thinking: Angela encourages embracing neurodivergent perspectives to approach SWOT analysis creatively and unlock innovative solutions.
SWOT analysis serves as a powerful tool for personal and professional growth, offering insights into strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. By leveraging strengths, mitigating weaknesses, and embracing opportunities, individuals can navigate challenges effectively and achieve success in their endeavors.
Click Here for the transcript
[00:00:00] Angela Mondor – The Geeky Girl: Welcome to the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. My name is Angela Mondor, also known as the Geeky Girl. In this podcast, we’re going to be talking about some amazing things to help you get over overgiving.
Hi, and welcome to this episode of the Obergivers Anonymous podcast. My name is Angela Mondor, and I’m also known as the Geeky Girl. Today, I want to talk to you about a SWOT analysis and hang on, just stick with me for a second, because I want to give you some neurodivergent friendly strategies.
For mastering a SWOT analysis, number one thing, if you don’t know what a SWOT analysis is, essentially allows you to be able to look at a situation from a bunch of different angles. It is really important when we’re talking about strategic planning and decision making inside our business. But it’s also important for us to be able to analyze ourselves.
And sometimes we can use the squat analysis for that. So we have the ability to see a problem or, and find some solutions, or maybe even find ways around some of the things that are coming up. So stick with me for a second. Yes, this is important for strategic. strategic planning inside your business. That is true.
And that is why so many businesses use it. Most corporations will do SWOT analysis on a regular basis through their strategic planning, and it can feel dry and uncomfortable and painful as a neurodivergent human being. But, let’s take this one step further, let’s take this and I’ll give you some different ways to use it and maybe you can find out that maybe a SWOT analysis isn’t so bad after all.
So, first of all, the basis of your SWOT analysis is literally, you’re looking, so SWOT is the acronym. So, you’re looking at your strengths, your weaknesses, your opportunities, and your threats. Okay, so there’s a lot of words there, and some of them might be triggering, and so I want you to think a little, just be open minded here for a little bit.
When we’re looking at being able to see a situation from multiple angles, this can be helpful to see what are the strengths in the situation, what are the weaknesses. Our opportunities are sometimes really important to be able to find different ways to see things, and the threats are the things that are going to hold us back.
So you can use this and you really it’s valuable to use this in your strategic planning, but I like to use this for other reasons too, especially if you have a hard time seeing your situation from different avenues or different ways of seeing it. This can be very valuable to you. Okay. So, We’ll look at it from a strategic point of view in terms of business strategic, but also in terms of how you can use it to help yourself in your, in your life and business as well.
So the first thing to do is think about what is it that I’m analyzing? What is it that I need to see from a different perspective? So if it’s your business and you’re looking at it from From maybe you’re doing your yearly analysis or your quarterly analysis, and you’re doing your SWOT analysis there, it would be the business itself.
So you’re looking at what are the strengths of the business? What do we do well in the business? Not as human beings. What does the business do well? Where is the business? Where are some of the weaknesses that are in the business? And then where are some opportunities where the business can grow further?
And what are the threats that are going to cause problems for us to be able to grow the business to where we’re moving to? Okay, so you’re looking at what is it you need to know what you’re analyzing first. So if you’re looking from a strategic plan, generally, it’s the health of the business. How do I either maintain what we’re currently doing or grow to a new level or change what we’re doing?
How do I move into a different marketplace? You can use these. pieces of the SWOT analysis to do this. Now, usually it’s a four grid. You know, it’s literally just draw, draw a large X or not X, I don’t know, on your page. So you get, you divide it into four and top left is your S for your strengths and then top right Is your W for weaknesses and then bottom left is your O for opportunities and bottom right is your T for threats.
And you just list the items inside there. So when you’re looking at the strengths of your business, what does the business do well? Where are the strengths in the business? Okay. If you want to do this for something else, you can look at this from now your human level. Maybe you can look at it from you, you want to get better at being a, you being on YouTube, for example, right?
What are your strengths about being on YouTube? What are the weaknesses? What are those opportunities? And what are those threats? You can use a SWOT analysis for smaller things. It doesn’t have to be as big and as overwhelming sometimes as the overall piece to your business. You can break it down into smaller pieces.
You can look at a SWOT analysis in terms of a relationship whether it’s a business relationship or a personal, personal relationship, all you need to do is know what it is that you want to analyze and then what that outcome looks like. You can look at these things and be able to decide about some choices.
You get to make some choices through this process. So we, I know you’ve probably heard me talk about this before, but talking about living in your brilliance, working from your circle of brilliance, that’s your strengths. Those are the strengths that are really important to look at. Where do you excel as a human being, if that’s what you’re doing, or as a business, if that’s the type of SWOT analysis you’re doing.
Always know what is the purpose of the analysis, right? So you don’t go off track cause that could be difficult. Start multiple pages. If one comes up and you’re like, Oh, I need another idea. Cause here’s what happens in our neurodivergent brain. Sometimes we get distracted and we’re like, Oh, I also want to do a swap with this.
So grab another piece of paper, put the name on top of it. of what you’re going to do next and set it aside. Focus on the one you currently have and move through it one period, one, one section at a time. Okay. Now, if you get stuck on something, here’s where I’m going to give you some strategies.
Sometimes it’s difficult for somebody to really see their strengths and it might be difficult for you to see yours. Reach out to people who know you really well. Ask them the question, what am I really good at here? That can be helpful. You might be somebody who doesn’t see your weaknesses really well.
Maybe you’re really great at finding your strengths, but you’re not very good at finding your weaknesses. They’re equally as important. So you can ask somebody, Hey, what are some of my weaknesses? What do you see as places where I could grow in terms of being better? We’re going to get back to that in a second.
In terms of your opportunities. Now, this is the opportunity of the situation. So, for example, in your business, your opportunity might be, Oh, you know what? There’s the ability to grow into this different sector, or there’s an opportunity for us to create a new course or whatever the case may be. There’s that till bottom, bottom left, right?
In that opportunity section. In terms of a relationship, maybe there’s an opportunity for you to grow closer to the person, if it’s a personal relationship, or maybe the opportunity is to expand how they work inside your business, if it’s a business relationship. So the opportunity is that growth piece, like what’s, what’s the opportunity to have something amazing happen?
The threat is what will stop us. So sometimes in our neurodivergent brain, we stop ourselves. Sometimes it isn’t us necessarily, but it’s the way our brain works. And so maybe you have so for example, if I was going to do just to make it really easy, a SWOT analysis, a SWOT analysis on me making supper, because this will be quick and easy.
My strengths, I know how to do it. I have the right equipment. I I have the right ingredients. I have the recipes if I so desire, right? In my weaknesses section is that I get distracted by noise and it’s difficult for me to do, and I have actually a lot of allergies in the house that I have to be worried about.
And so there’s the weakness on that side of it. The opportunity is that I could create an amazing meal for my family. I could have the opportunity for all of us to come together and eat together. I have the opportunity to show my love to my family through food. And in the threat section, of course, is I bring back that weakness piece is that being distracted by sound and you get to look at so, so the threat is being distracted by sound or not getting started on time or my time management gets in the way of managing different pieces of the meal to get them to happen at the same time.
Those are some things that you can look at. Now when I look at that overall piece, I think, okay, so I can do the thing. I know I can. I want to have the people come together. So the weaknesses and the threats here. I’ll tell you what my answer is to my SWOT analysis is that I either listen to a podcast or an audio book while I’m cooking.
That doesn’t, that negates the sound problem that I have. So if, you know, somebody else is watching TV in another room or the kids are fighting or something else is happening, I’m not going to get distracted because I have my ears plugged with other things going on. Now my kids are adults. I don’t have to worry about them fighting.
They can take after themselves. They’re not 12 or they’re, well, they’re not two and three anymore, right? So I have the ability to tune them. I, I have the privilege to be able to tune them out. The ability is simply plugging my ears. In terms of the, you know, not timing and that kind of thing, then I can say, okay, well, if I have a big meal to put together, I need to be able to put timings on the chalkboard and the in the kitchen to say, Oh, this one needs to start at this time.
This one needs to start at that time. And then I use either the timer on my, on my Fitbit, or I use Alexa to put different timers on for me so that she’s alerting me on time to get started. So when you’re looking at your SWOT analysis, that that’s what you’re doing. You want to accomplish something. So you want to know what you’re.
the overall projection of it is, right? What’s your strengths, your weaknesses, the opportunities and the threats. Make sure it is an opportunity that you actually want to work towards. And then how do you buffer those weaknesses and those threats? Now, here’s where it gets a little complicated for our neurodivergent people.
We tend to feel like we need to fix all of our weaknesses. We tend to feel like the weaknesses are the things that we need to fix. And I want you to just not. Especially when it comes to business when it comes to trying to be perfect, we’re never going to be perfect no matter how much you fix. I want you to focus on your strengths.
We need to mitigate our weaknesses, but we don’t need to fix them. I’m never going to fix being distracted by sound. I don’t know how. I, I don’t know how to fix that, but I know how to mitigate it by blocking it out. Okay? So the same thing in your business. You’re not a great communicator with words on paper, then mitigate your situation. Does that require that you need to hire somebody that can help you with it? Maybe you need an editor. Maybe you need somebody to write them for you. Maybe you need to use AI to help boost your ability to write something.
I know that sometimes even with a simple email, I’ll start to write it and think, you know what, that could sound better. I drop it in chat GPT and say, could you, could you write this in a more friendly way? And they give me extra words. And I go, Oh, thank you. You’re not trying to fix the weaknesses. You only try to mitigate them so that they don’t impact that opportunity that you have.
Okay? Sometimes that means hiring somebody. Sometimes that means having a tool. Sometimes that means we need to find a another coping mechanism. There’s different ways that we can mitigate those weaknesses, but I really don’t want you getting stuck in the concept of, Oh, if it’s not a strength, I need to build it up.
I really want you to focus on your strengths. And the more strengths you have, the less weaknesses you have. It’s just. It’s an interesting dichotomy of how this works, but don’t focus on fixing the weaknesses. That’s, I think the biggest thing that you can get wrong when it comes to a SWOT analysis. We’re not trying to fix it.
Okay. You’re just looking for ways to get past it so that the opportunities are going to come to fruition. And of course the threats it’s, we don’t look at threats and go, Oh, how do I fix a threat? We look at how do we mitigate it? So if we know that there’s a threat, we look and see how can I, how can I change the environment?
How can I change the things? How can I change whatever’s going on? Think about your weaknesses the same way. Okay. So when you analyze this, now you can come up with an action plan. The way that I talked about cooking supper, I know it’s an easy situation, but there were some hard things for me to get over for, for that.
And so looking at when you’re looking at that. Quadrant, those quadrants. And you’re just like, how do I make it so that I can actually get the opportunity that I want? Mitigate your, your weaknesses and your threats. And then create a plan. You cannot control the outcome, regardless of how much we would like to.
I can’t control whether the food turns out I don’t know exactly the way it was supposed to, but my actions are what matter. And so if you focus on your actions, eventually focusing on your actions will give you the results you’re looking for. It also allows you to be able to come back and say, did that work or didn’t it work?
So once you implement that action plan in whatever it is that your SWOT analysis is about. Whether it’s. Building your YouTube channel, growing your email list you know, changing the way you do business, whatever the case may be, you can come back and look. Here’s the actions that I chose to take based on looking at my strengths, my weaknesses, those opportunities, and the threats by looking at these things.
Here’s the action plan that I came up with. And then you go and take those actions. And then you can come back and say, did those actions work or not? One more touch on the opportunities. There’s a couple of different ways that opportunities show up. Opportunities could be something that’s come up that you’re like, Oh, I think I want to participate in that, right?
There’s a, there’s an opportunity available. Always make sure that that opportunity is in line with your overall plan for the year. Don’t let it take you off the rails and go somewhere different if that wasn’t on your plan. But an opportunity could also be an open in the marketplace. It could, there’s a lot of different ways that you can see opportunity.
Okay. So also allow your mind to get a little free. This is where your neurodivergent mind could be really helpful is to allow yourself to relax and be free and try to see things a little differently. Okay? So in the end, SWOT analysis can be very, very valuable for you. Try not to think of them in terms of the maybe dry and corporate way you’ve seen them before, but use them so that you can find out where your strengths are.
Remember, You want to grow and strengthen your strengths. We want to mitigate our weaknesses. We don’t want to fix them. Some of the things just can’t be fixed. And why waste time on those things when you could be living in your circle of brilliance and either offloading those things, maybe you’re outsourcing some of your weaknesses maybe that there’s other ways to mitigate those things, but don’t waste time.
A lot of your time trying to learn to be better at those things, but find ways to mitigate them. And maybe that means hiring somebody in the business or asking somebody who’s already in your business, if they can take on one or two more other things and expand their role inside your business. I love that.
I encourage you to apply these tips to a SWOT analysis, to use this, to be able to see the world a little differently, and to be able to grow in different ways inside your business and your personal life in ways that will show you the success that you’re looking for in your life and business. I hope you have a fantastic week.
We’ll talk to you next week.