Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, gave some wonderful career advice on his blog last year. He recommended a general formula for success:

If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths:

1. Become the best at one specific thing.
2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.

He points out that capitalism rewards things that are both rare and valuable. So you make yourself rare by combining two or more “pretty goods” until no one else has your mix.

Now that is some good advice. It is very difficult to be the best in the world at one thing, but if you can be pretty good and combine it with something else you are pretty good at, then you can make yourself stand out.

His advice suggests that at least one of the skills in your mixture should involve communication, either written or verbal - that’s one. Then add to that whatever your passion is, and you have two, because that’s the thing you’ll easily put enough energy into to reach the top 25%.  If you have an aptitude for a third skill, develop that too.

If you look around at some of the very successful people you know, you will find that they have managed to find the perfect combination of their skills that sets them apart from those around them. So use this year to find your mix.