Chart Your Future with a SWOT Analysis

Here’s how to analyze your life — and your business — with the SWOT method.

Key Takeaways:

• A SWOT analysis is an effective tool to elicit more self-awareness and success.
• SWOT stands for strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat.
• They are typically used in a corporate setting but are just as useful for personal transformation.
• They are used to assess the past, present, and future of your individual career goals or company objectives.

There comes a point in life (hopefully) where we all start searching for more self-awareness in an effort to know ourselves more honestly and make decisions based on our values and internal standards. It’s a skill very few people have but one that can greatly improve life if mastered.

A SWOT analysis is one of the most valuable tools in your journey to self-awareness. A strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat (SWOT) analysis is typically used in a corporate setting to assess company strategy. Leaders can get a clearer picture of what their team does best and where they need to improve.

A personal SWOT analysis does the same for an individual. It can offer insights into the challenges ahead and the opportunities available throughout life based on character strengths and weaknesses.

Here’s when and how to conduct a SWOT analysis on your own and some risks you may encounter along the way.

When to SWOT

As I note in another article, achieving our full potential isn’t about “changing” who we are, it’s about “uncovering” our authentic selves by burning off the parts of us we don’t need. I was able to achieve this in my own life through self-actualization, stopping or reducing activities that were harmful to me, and adding activities that helped me become who I wanted to be.

A SWOT analysis is a great way to confront this process.

SWOTs are helpful at any stage of the game. Conduct one before attacking your goals to find out how to start or when you’re overwhelmed and need a clear vision of where change is possible. It can help you find solutions to problems and reveal priorities you hadn’t thought of before.

Steps of a Personal SWOT

Harvard business icons Edmund P. Learned, C. Roland Christensen, Kenneth Andrews, and William D. Guth developed the SWOT methodology in the late 1950s. Heinz Weihrich expounded upon the concept in the 1980s, creating the diagram most often used today.

A SWOT typically starts with a goal, although you can conduct one for any reason, at any time. The type of goal is inconsequential. It can be anything from improving personal relationships to getting a new job. Complete a personal SWOT and use the results to reach your goal.

Begin a personal SWOT with a four-quadrant table. Label the top two boxes as strengths and weaknesses, the internal factors. Label the bottom two as opportunities and threats, the external factors. This is the most basic layout, but there are many others. Choose one that best suits your needs. Now it’s time to get to work.

1. List your strengths

List your strengths, including resources, experiences, and all the positive things under your control that you can use to your advantage. Strengths can be skills, abilities, or qualifications.

There is no room for modesty in this exercise. List everything you’re good at, such as staying calm under pressure or being a great listener or charismatic leader.

2. Identify weaknesses

This is potentially the most exciting part of a SWOT analysis. Listing the things you aren’t good at and areas of life you haven’t explored often leads to enlightening discoveries.

It’s crucial not to be too hard on yourself at this juncture. Facing your shortcomings with a positive attitude provides a leg up among peers busy stewing in self-doubt and recrimination.

3. Define available opportunities

Opportunities are those external things in your life that allow you to do something different or try something new. Include personal and career prospects. Consider human resources, market trends, community offerings, and internship situations.

List opportunities outside your strength and interest areas. There could be unexpected benefits in opportunities you thought weren’t for you.

4. Detect potential threats

Threats are external factors that could create a disadvantage. Start by listing the obstacles that impede your progress toward a goal. It could be job market changes, industry fluctuations, or extreme competition.

5. Come to a conclusion

Use the information you’ve gathered during your SWOT analysis to make informed decisions about reaching your goals and taking the next step in life.

A completed SWOT is a roadmap to your future. It shows the best ways to capitalize on your strengths and opportunities while eliminating your weaknesses and demobilizing threats. Use the data to plan marketing strategies to get your next job, start a new business, or even forge a new relationship.

Potential risk factors

There are a few potential disadvantages of conducting a personal SWOT analysis. These might include:

Oversimplifying

It’s easy to quickly jot down all the answers that pop into your head and run with it, but you need more. It’s essential to deep dive into your soul to find as many answers as possible.

Paralysis by analysis

This amusing term is used to describe what can happen with too much information. Many become so overwhelmed with data that they are stifled and make no decisions.

Assumptions

People very often have assumptions about themselves that later prove untrue. When you fill your SWOT matrix with false assumptions, it takes longer to get to the truth.

Everything in life comes with a set of risks. The key to happiness is trusting yourself enough to look past the risks and take the jump into a better life.

A SWOT is a tool for life enrichment at its core. It is as useful as you make it. Your future depends on it.

Bring more self-awareness into your life with a SWOT analysis

The SWOT analysis tool is a great way to jump-start the new you, and there are many others. I base my teachings on what I’ve found to be true about personal transformation and how it affects every part of life. Take a look at my LinkedIn and Twitter pages to see what personal transformation looks like firsthand and what it can do for you!