No SWOT, No Glory

Fans of Club Brugge will immediately make the link to “No sweat, no glory”, the slogan that the club adopted in 2011 and which is a variant of the familiar “No pain, no gain”. But this article isn´t about football. Rather, it’s about how you - with one of the world´s simplest and most popular management tools - can set a clear goal for yourself and get moving towards your own personal "glory" and "gain."

Many people are familiar with the SWOT analysis as an aid for mapping out the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of a company or product in a clear and readily understandable way. But few of them apply it to their own lives – even though it can generate some surprising results.

A personal SWOT analysis can help you map out what you want and whether that desire matches your possibilities. The analysis leads to a personal profile that gives insight into your opportunities for achieving a particular goal, one which can be either private or work-related.

SWOT actually comes from the marketing sector and stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, but this principle can also be used very neatly to map out the feasibility of your own ambitions.

Strengths and weaknesses are always internal: they belong to you and fall within your sphere of influence. For example, a good network (or the lack of one) can be a strength (or a weakness).

Opportunities and threats are always external, and lie outside your sphere of influence. If the recession has hit your sector and it is causing a loss of turnover or even jobs, then this is a threat. Because it is an external factor, there’s not a whole lot you can do about it. However, you can look at how your strengths and weaknesses relate to this threat.

Here is a useful overview to help you get started with your personal SWOT analysis.