What is my Uniqueness? 3 Steps to Build Your Own Brand

That is not true. You are unique.

So, what makes you unique? Your values, your personality, and many other ingredients combined with your life story and personal experience. In this article, I will give you a lot of concrete tools to get to know yourself better and then how to show it to the world! Don’t stop reading here, as you are about to discover a lot about what makes you so unique! Ready?

Step 1: Know yourself

The first step, as always, is AWARENESS. Easy to remember! If you want to know yourself better, you first need to explore and get to know who you are - to understand what makes you unique, here are the important elements to explore:

1. Get to know your personality.

Your personality is defined by the way you think, feel and behave. It is critical that you understand how you function as a very unique individual. You will discover some areas that are serving you/driving you and others that I call ‘areas of improvements,’ where there is room for you to grow.

How do you get to know your personality? Doing a personality test is a very good option. Many of them exist like MBTI, NEO, Insights, HOGAN etc. For most of them, you need a certified coach to order it and debrief it with you. The value of doing it with a coach is obviously high as you will get a better understanding, and the coach can also help you understand the subtleties that you may not see straight away on your own.

As an alternative to these great renowned test, there is a fun one to do, which you can do on your own: It is called 16 personalities. Click here to access the online test.

2. Get to know your values.

Values are at the core of everything we do and they represent what is important to us. Knowing them is KEY to build your branding.

To define your values, take a pen and a paper and make a list of your 10 most important values. For inspiration, you can have a look at this list.

Put them somewhere nicely and always refer to them. In defining what makes you unique, it is important that you include your values.

3. Get to know your skills.

Distinction Hard Skills/ Soft Skills

What are you good at? Here is, once again, a very critical point. We are talking here about Hard skills AND Soft skills. Both of them are equally important. Hard skills are a must-have. Soft skills are what make the difference. Let’s take a closer look.

Exemple: Hard skill: I can deliver webinars. (I know how to do it)

Soft Skills: In my webinar, I include everyone, I use humor to share my ideas, I give people concrete exercises to put them in action, etc.

That’s what makes me unique, not the fact that I can deliver seminars. You got me here?

Write down your soft skills on a piece of paper.

Your natural skills are your gift!

I hear too many times: ‘This is so easy for me, it is not even a skill.’ However, this is exactly where your uniqueness is! What is most natural for you is where your most natural motivations are!

As an exercise, I would suggest doing 2 columns: one with what you are good at/one with what you love to do. The combination of both is your strengths.

4. Get to know your motivations.

What is motivating you? What do you love to do in life? What makes you wake up in the morning?

To understand what makes you unique, you need to know what are your inner motivations.

How to do that? I suggest a couple of options:

Do your Ikigai

IKIGAI is a Japanese concept that means ‘reason of being.’ It is referring to having a direction or purpose in life, towards which you take action. It aims to provide satisfaction and a sense of meaning.

I strongly recommend doing your ikigai if you are looking for your passion, fulfillment in your career. It may be challenging on your own, so getting help to put it all together would be definitely beneficial.

Go on your inner-child exploration: Your inner child has many answers to those questions you are asking yourself, he/she knows what your most natural motivations are. Exploring them can definitely give you many insights. I organize workshops on these topics on a regular basis. Follow me on Linkedin or Instagram to stay tuned about the next dates!

5. Add your Story & Life Experience

Knowing yourself is definitely critical to define your uniqueness. To that, you need to add your story and life experience. The combination of all the ingredients listed above and your life experience makes you a special person with UNIQUE characteristics.

What did you experience in your life? What did you learn from your previous jobs? Which strengths did you develop? What did you learn from your mistakes?

Everything that you have done and experienced shaped you and made you who you are today.

When looking for a job or the next steps in your professional career, defining your uniqueness is a process that will definitely help build your professional project.

6. Make your final statement

Now that you have reflected on the points above, please make a statement about yourself. A short paragraph that describes why you are unique. Think:

What do you want others to remember about you?

This statement is very important as you will say it each time you need to communicate about yourself.

Step 2: Increase your self-awareness by asking for feedback

Why is getting feedback so important?

The Johari windows concept describes this best.

As you can see on the scheme, getting feedback helps us see our blind spots - the areas that we are not able to see ourselves. You will be surprised what you can discover about yourself by asking others what they see in you!

Here is your exercise:

Contact 10 people around you (colleagues, friends, family, boss, etc).

Explain to them that you are working on your branding and unique value proposition. And ask them the following:

‘If you would describe me in one word or sentence, what would it be?’

‘What is my uniqueness according to you?’

See the similarities/differences between your statement/discoveries you have made earlier and the results you got from your feedback. What do you learn about yourself? What can you include in your statement?

Step 3: Spread the word!

Once you have done all these steps, it is very important that you finalize your statement. What makes you unique?

Be aware of the image you give others, your reputation. At work, with friends, on social media, etc. Your reputation shapes how others perceive you in a positive or negative way. You need to be consistent in your communication and behavior.

Work on your uniqueness! Others need to see what you want them to see about you. Reshape your CV, social media, communication that others get a clear image of your branding. What do you want them to remember about you/ what do you want others to say about you?

Last but not least, don’t be shy! You are incredible and the world needs you. Show your strengths and make them shine! Don’t hide your uniqueness, because you are afraid to show off or whatsoever. Look at all the people that did great things in this world. They were not afraid of talking about their beliefs/ projects/ dreams!

I hope that you learned a lot about yourself from this article.

Believe in yourself and just spread the word!

If you want to explore more, do not hesitate to contact me! Talk soon 🙂

BONUS

If you are reading this paragraph, you deserve a bonus 😉 Here you will find links to online tests you can do to get to know yourself better. Don’t forget, it is a great start, but debriefing them with a coach will definitely increase the value of what you will get out of it:

How to get started? Just do something!

" To start moving, you just need to have 5% of the answers to your questions, the other 95% come along the way. Those who want 100% of the answers to start moving remain stuck. "

Mike horn

Stop finding excuses

'I am tired', 'I don't have time', 'I am not good enough', whatever! I am not saying that you are not tired or that you have plenty of time, I am just saying that by thinking this way, you are putting yourself into that mood. You are bringing your 'mind's eye'* on it and by focusing on it, you block yourself to find other ways, to see other possibilities.

You are in control. You can stop these excuses by firstly not telling them out loud- when you speak something out loud, it becomes reality. By not talking about it, it will help you to find room to do something. Make space in your brain for other possibilities.

Clarify what is important for you (your values)

If you want a change, it's because there is something in your life which you are not satisfied with. I find it useful to ask yourself the following questions, you can take a paper and answer to them step by step - it won't take long, I promise! - :

Which needs are currently not satisfied in this situation ?
What are the values that are not satisfied?

Once you have done the list of the needs above, it becomes quite easy to define the values one by one. (example: recognition, respect, security) This second list expresses what you want, instead of what you have right now. It gives you a first reading grid of what is important for you. Classify these values in 3 columns: essentials, important, nice to have. Keep this list aside, put it in a nice book or somewhere it feels right for you. These are your values, they deserve a nice spot in your house.

Identify what is motivating you

Answer the 2 questions below :

Here you will clarify what are your motivational factors. How do you concretely motivate yourself ?

For instance, I motivate myself when I feel trusted. I motivate myself when I am in a busy environment. I motivate myself when I can speak several languages, etc. It is concrete and it helps you to identify what you need right now to move on.

Once you have identified your values and your motivational factors, you have the first tools in your hand to get started with 'something' as a first step to a change.

Finally, take time to anchor these values in yourself

It is important to take time to anchor these values in you. They will help you to trust in yourself, in the actions you will take. Carry them as a Talisman. Be proud of them. Stand for what is important for you.

One of my value is tolerance. I should be proud of it. I carry my values with pride. You want to make fun of me because I am like this? Go ahead, I will not be ashamed of it.

How to anchor them?

So, that's it! You can now start whatever you want to! Just start something that is in line with your values, who you are, and things will come naturally along the way. I love this quote from Mike Horn (translated from french)' To start moving, you just need to have 5% of the answers to your questions, the other 95% come along the way. Those who want 100% of the answers to start moving remain stuck.'

So you know what you have to do!