All of us are obsessed with our weaknesses. Pick any self-help book or attend any self-improvement talk, the focus is always on recognising and overcoming your weaknesses.The constant worry is to improve your weak points, try to fix everything that you lack! And in the almost fanatical fixation with vulnerabilities, your strengths lie largely ignored.
Pause and ponder on this for a while. Supposing strong technical skills is your forte and you find yourself a little weak when it comes to communication skills, which issues will you tend to concentrate on? Nine out of ten people are sure to be content with the technical specialty and will enroll themselves for some course on interpersonal skill development!
In direct contrast, is an emergent view that within your strengths lies the ability to correct your weaknesses.
Why strengths?
Let’s take the legendary story of the rabbit that was enrolled in a rabbit school. Like all other rabbits, it could hop very well but could not swim. At the end of the year, the rabbit got high marks in hopping but failed in swimming. The parents were concerned. They said, “Forget about hopping. You are anyways good at it. Concentrate on swimming.” They sent the rabbit for tuitions in swimming. And guess what happened? The rabbit forgot how to hop! As for swimming, have you ever seen a rabbit swim?
Therefore, do not mistakenly concentrate on becoming good at everything you do. Being a perfectionist and eliminating your weaknesses will only make you the proverbial ‘Jack of all trades but master of none’.
Instead, move to building on your strengths, as it will produce bigger gains. This will help you to make an impact, move forward and also correct your weaknesses. Only then can you be successful, content and happy.
In fact, experts are beginning to believe that the predominant reason why most people fail is because they do not utilise their strengths to the fullest. Most of the time is spent on worrying about the weaknesses.
Building your strengths begins with identifying what you are good at. Indulge in deep soul-searching to discover what skills you can bank on or what abilities will help you get things done. Do not think that you do not possess any strengths at all. Everyone has some unique and inherent gifts; the difference is that you may not be aware of what you have.
Take the time to reveal your natural abilities by thinking in terms of what you can do well. Are you good at marketing or is organising your strong point? Do you speak confidently and how good are your communication skills? What about your leadership qualities? Also, can you work under pressure or are you quick at solving technical issues?
This will shed light on your unexpressed strengths. You should be proud of your other abilities like strong purpose, self-confidence, indomitable spirit, clear perception, persuasiveness, ability to work hard or quick learning and use them to the hilt. In fact, the best possible way to hone and develop your strengths is to use them. Like it’s always said, ‘Use it or lose it’. So, try to exploit what you are good at by incorporating it in different areas of your work and life. Use your strengths regularly and also find additional ways to put them to constructive use.
Deriving full advantage of your assets will help you to maintain motivation, be effective, get results and achieve your goals. In short, you can successfully pull yourself ahead of the game.
Apart from this, concentrate on what you can do well and try to excel in the said field. This is not to say that you should completely ignore your weaknesses either. Just steer clear of those weak points that do not impact your job or are irrelevant to your goals.
For instance, if you are a good manager, your main goal should be to lead and direct your subordinates in the best way possible. It does not make sense to unnecessarily waste your valuable energies on trying to balance the company checkbook, as you obviously know that it is your limitation. Leaving such tasks to your accounts manager will save you time, stress and frustration. In short, give up trying to be good at everything! You can also leverage your strengths to correct the weak areas that are holding you back or getting in the way of your goals. In other words, concentrate on strengthening your strengths and the weaknesses will take care of themselves.
To sum up in the words of Mr. Azim Premji, “While it is important for us to know what we are not good at, we must also cherish what is good in us. That is because it is only strengths that can give us the energy to correct our weakness.”
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