Every one of us agrees on the fact that the strengths and weaknesses of a person greatly impact the life – personal or professional. We experience since childhood that often our parents or teachers try to improve us in subjects where we are getting low grades. They insist that we pay attention and spend time on these subjects rather on those that we are good at. And, this pattern continues even as we grow up and start our career. We tend to focus on areas where we are falling behind and ignore the areas that are our strengths. Although it is required that we work on our weaknesses, it is all the more required to identify our strengths and polish them further and make the best possible use of them to conquer this world.
Importance of developing strengths: It is agreed that there is a need to improve on one’s weaknesses. However, it is also true that people can improve in a certain skill only to their maximum potential and it does not guarantee that working on your weakness will make you stand on par with those who are naturally skilled at that skill or those who have a greater willpower to succeed. So even while working on our weaknesses, it is more important to identify our strengths and make the best use of them.
Identifying strengths and weaknesses:
Understand the things that are done with ease: The first step to identifying our strengths is identifying and understanding things that we do with great ease and things that we finish and attain good results. We should pay attention to and analyze the areas where we work effortlessly naturally and sense a feeling of everything being under control.
Understand emotions: After the first step, to confirm that we are on the right track, we should concentrate on what our emotions are saying. After a work is done, if we are happy and satisfied that the job is done or we like it so much that we feel like starting it over again, it means we love doing this work. Here, a little care is required to understand our emotions and not get blown away by the instant happiness after finishing a task. We should take into consideration our happiness combined with strong emotions.
Understand weaknesses: Along with strengths, we should also understand our weaknesses by analyzing the activities that we don’t like or activities for which we don’t have positive emotions. We can even identify our weaknesses by observing activities where we lack interest and procrastinate doing them or take more time than others to complete.
Go for some research: After identifying our strengths and weaknesses, we should engage in some personal research involving our peers who can provide some valuable info on what they think about us. It may happen that our thoughts and their thoughts about us may differ, but we should try to align them and work accordingly.
Here’s a quote to inspire all of us.
Emphasize strengths, don’t fix weaknesses.” – Tim Ferriss
It is said that, when we work on our strengths, we multiply them, whereas when we work on our weaknesses, we turn out to be just mediocre, but not great at the skill. So, we should work more on our strengths in order to grow in our career and life.