Each of us is a unique self with our own mix of personal strengths and weaknesses.
Personal strengths might include sensitivity, work ethic, candour, playfulness or many other behaviours.
However, can these strengths become a weakness if taken too far? Being over sensitive can make it hard to be with less sensitive people. Someone who works too hard may neglect the very people they love and work hard for. And so;
For each strength, too much of it can become a weakness.
There is a judgement to be made in how much you use your strengths. Too much of any of them can bring a negative influence into your life. Balance is needed to have not too much but also not too little.
Finding the middle path is the best route to take.
To achieve this, you may need to do this consciously and thoughtfully initially. Eventually it will become second nature and you will not need to give it a thought.
We all have flaws in ourselves. You have to bear with them along with other peoples’ flaws. Given the balancing nature of strengths and weaknesses, you need to optimise your strength not to let it become a weakness.
Let me give you an example to explain this.
Being up front and speaking honestly is a strength. But if you give your opinion when it is not requested it becomes a weakness as you are seen as opinionated and lacking flexibility. There is a balance to be found between the strength and the weakness.
This all feels quite complicated but it need not be. There are 3 easy steps;
- Review your strengths and weaknesses. It is difficult to manage your strengths if you don’t know what they are. Reflect a while and note on some paper your three key strengths. Just being aware of them will help you to not allow them to go too far and become a weakness. Then reflect a little more on what your weaknesses might be and note the top three.
2. Take the three top weaknesses and identify what you might do to improve it. Take action to work on reducing your weaknesses.
3. Keep iterating over time 1 and 2 above. The reason for only looking at three weaknesses is not to allow yourself to become overwhelmed by trying to make too much change to happen at once. If you can only handle managing one that is alright. You are moving in the right direction and working at improving how you live.
I cannot stress too much that the art is not to work on too many actions at once. Otherwise, there is a very real danger of becoming over whelmed which helps no-one. Consciously do one or two actions. When these become second nature, take two more actions.
It is very much a little step at a time.
However often the tortoise overtakes the hare.
At some point you will look back and be amazed at how you have improved your strengths and reduced your weaknesses.
