What am I capable of?

The question of what you’re capable of is to do with your competencies. A competency is something someone can do well. For example, someone is a good lawyer or entrepreneur, or has it in him/her to become one. But how do you go about measuring whether or not someone is a good entrepreneur or lawyer? There are no unequivocal views on this. In this regard, the focus is usually on competencies. But what exactly are competencies? And what do they consist of?

Definition of competency

What is a competency? What is the definition of a competency? Competencies indicate what someone is good at and consist of one or more of the following components: skills, knowledge, motives, personality and capacities.

• Skills. These are activities you’re good at and are usually learnable. Read more on skills.
• Knowledge level. This is about what you know (e.g. education, language) and in principle can also be learned. Read more on knowledge level.
• Motives. These say something about your motivation, attitude, preference and values with regard to work or study. Motives can partly change as a result of age, work experience. Read more on motives.
• Character or personality. This says something about who you are and is constant. Read more on personality.
• Capacities. Finally, you have certain innate capacities that cannot be learned. Read more about capacities.

These factors collectively give a good impression of your competencies. Feel free to take a look at the competency list on 123test for an overview of the various competencies.