Your first step to building your brand is understanding yourself.Our research with executives has shown us that there are 6 components that make up your brand – your values, mission, goals, talents, behavioral style and habits.A little digression is in order here. What we have found is that you will be most effective if you force yourself to prioritize decisions into groups of three. Research indicates that a person should limit their attention to three tasks or thoughts. Boiling a world of infinite possibilities down to three alternatives makes it easy for you to stay focused and others to see a consistency in different dimensions of your behavior and value creation. Anything more than three and a person can become overextended and confused.While you read the rest of this article, think about the most important, critical three points for each of the categories.Values in your lifeWhat’s important to you? Typically, people choose words like:Peace, harmony, justice, fairness, honesty, family, integrity, trust, meritocracyWhichever you choose, your decisions will become infinitely easier when your values are clear. Other people will be able to predict your behavior and align themselves accordingly.Your primary missionsThese are things you strive for and believe in. A mission is your vision of something that you’ll never say is done-at least not in this lifetime. A mission is not like a goal that can be measured. How will your missions make a difference to other individuals and society? Powerful missions attract powerful supporters and they will help you achieve them.Most important goalsIt is great to have many goals but which ones are worthy of your best attention and efforts? Remember, you can have anything you want in your life. Picking your most important three is a challenge because most people have many goals that, when viewed in retrospect, are not truly significant. Are all your goals work related? Think about your work/life balance.Personal MasteryEveryone has exceptional talents. Few people spend their lives focusing on a few talents and thus create personal mastery. Yet these are the people we remember, the ones who create breakthroughs and really touch the people with whom they interface. Only recently, has there been research that shows that this differentiates top executive leadership and the second tier. Top leaders achieve mastery on a few select areas. There is no one set of talents in a top leader, just the act of creating mastery at selected talents is what makes the difference for that individual. So what would you choose to master? How will your selected talents affect others?Behavioral styleWe all have a natural behavioral style. It is never right or wrong except when we do not adapt to the people we are trying to influence. Understanding yourself and how you affect others provides tremendous payback in achieving your goals and dreams. Fortunately, there are powerful assessment tools that can help you understand yourself.HabitsAsk 5 people what they see you do regularly as your personal “process” to successfully navigate life’s challenges. Write everything down they tell you and reflect on the list. What patterns do you see? Are your habits working for you or fighting you?Can you identify the top three items for you in each of these six categories? If you can, you’ll place yourself in the top one percent of all the people on the planet because so few people ever do this.If you want to be truly successful invest in yourself to get the knowledge you need to find your unique factor. When you find it and focus on it and persevere your success will blossom. – Sidney Madwed