The Power of Embracing Your Innate Function

This post is part of our series, How Natural Law Can Help You Thrive at Work. Each post explores how nature’s wisdom can help us reimagine work — cultivating the social soil where people and planet flourish in harmony. Read the full series.

You’re Not Broken, You’re Built

Reframing strengths as design features, not flaws.

Every element in nature has a role to play. Roots stabilize, leaves capture sunlight, rivers carve paths that sustain entire landscapes. None of these parts apologize for what they are — they simply function within their form and do what they are designed to do. 

Yet at work, many of us spend a lot of time feeling like we should be someone else. We contort ourselves to fit roles that don’t match our design, measuring against standards that ignore what makes us unique. No wonder so many people feel depleted.

The truth is, you’re not broken. You’re built. Your strengths are features, not flaws — and when embraced, they are your one-of-a-kind contribution to the larger system.

Naming the Invisible

How language brings hidden talents into focus.

One of the most powerful steps we can take is simply naming what comes naturally to us. Research shows that when people utilize language to access and share their strengths, they experience more confidence, more energy, and greater wellbeing.

It’s like shining a light on hidden patterns. Suddenly, what once felt random or overlooked becomes visible and valued. This is where positive psychology and strengths science connect with systems thinking: naming strengths reveals the unique function each person contributes to the whole.

Language matters. When we can articulate what’s good and true about ourselves, we begin to trust it — and invite others to trust it too. 

Trusting the Shape of Your Work

Aligning tasks and roles with natural strengths.

When you trust your innate function, you stop forcing yourself into constant friction. Instead of fighting your design, you flow with it.

This doesn’t mean avoiding challenges — rivers still carve through rock, after all. It means aligning your work with what fuels you rather than drains you. For some, that looks like organizing chaos into order. For others, it’s generating ideas, building trust, or moving people to action.

When tasks align with natural strengths, energy multiplies. Work shifts from grinding to flowing into contribution.

When Everyone Plays Their Part

The collective power of individual alignment.

Here’s the beauty of it: when each person embraces their strength, the whole system thrives. Just as an ecosystem depends on every element doing its part — pollinators, decomposers, producers — organizations depend on individuals bringing their true strengths.

This is systems leadership at the human scale—not sameness, but a living mosaic of strengths: each piece essential to the picture. As Donella Meadows says, “Each way of seeing allows our knowledge of the wondrous world in which we live to become a little more complete.”

When people are free to play their part, trust grows. Collaboration deepens. And the organization as a whole becomes more adaptive, resilient, and alive.

Onward—

You are not broken — you are built for something only you can contribute. When you name, trust, and live into that design, you free energy not just for yourself but for the whole system.

In the final part of this series, we’ll zoom out to the bigger picture — exploring what it means for organizations themselves to function as living ecosystems.

This reflection builds on The Heart of Our Work, where we first shared the living systems philosophy behind Canon Collaborative.