Sometimes, you don’t realize your own strength until you come face-to-face with your greatest weakness. – Susan Gale
Being aware of your strengths and weaknesses is crucial for character development, which is needed regardless of where you stand in the hierarchy. While managers and other senior executives train their subordinates, they must become better professionals and individuals themselves. For this, it is crucial to be capable of identifying one’s weaknesses.
Your Weaknesses Hold You Back
In simple words, weakness is an area that needs improvement. It can include both personal and professional skills, hard and soft skills as well as social skills. Having a weakness is not a problem, but letting it affect your daily life and performance at work is.
Most people focus on developing their strengths more than eliminating their weaknesses. Is this recommended? We say not. Your strengths help you achieve more, while your weaknesses hold you back and prevent you from achieving many great things that you are capable of achieving. Since identifying our weaknesses and working on them makes us uneasy, many people tend to be scared of doing this and try to avoid them as long as possible. But the fact remains – if you want to do your best in life, you have to face this fear.
Weaknesses not only affect your range of achievements, but they also taint how you perceive yourself. You may start believing that you are vulnerable, weak, or without talent or confidence due to your weaknesses. This is why you should work on identifying your weaknesses so that you can improve and become a better version of yourself. With this new perspective in life, you will be able to focus on increasing your strengths and leading a more meaningful and satisfying life.
Interestingly, working on your weaknesses can also help you battle mental illness, leading to a better mood and wellbeing. Having an understanding and accepting mindset lets you do a better personal assessment, which helps pinpoint your weak areas. This knowledge is useful for deciding which activities deserve your valuable time and energy so that you can make a bigger impact and save yourself from frustration.
“Don’t weaken yourself by surrendering to your weaknesses. Strengthen yourself by conquering your weaknesses.” – Dr. T.P.Chia
How Can Identifying Weaknesses Help You Succeed?
Weaknesses hinder your success due to the reasons mentioned above. So, let’s look at how getting rid of them can pave the path for growth and success. Here are some ways in which working on your weaknesses can be helpful:
You become a better version of yourself
It is important to remember that no one starts off as confident and successful; these things come with time, experience, and effort. Nobody is perfect, and everyone needs to put in time and effort to get to know themselves better and become capable of turning their weaknesses into strengths.
We all have our weaknesses, and that is not a bad thing. However, it’s a problem when you waste too much time worrying about them and overthinking about scenarios where your weaknesses cause you a disadvantage. While being aware of your weaknesses is recommended, taking a proactive approach to your weaknesses is also necessary because it will help you live your dream life.
You become more focused on self-improvement
If you are looking to improve yourself, identifying, understanding, accepting, and working on your weakness are sure-fire ways to do it. Our external problems surely hinder our progress, but often it is our own mindset that is the root of the problem. If you are finally ready to make the needed difference, focusing on your weaknesses will do the trick. You can start by analyzing your personal and professional lives and making a list of your weaknesses. You may also find it helpful to ask those around you to name the weaknesses that affect your relationships and productivity at work. This may seem a small step, but can be the foundation that you need to make bigger changes in your life.
You become stronger
A faulty mindset sets the tone for failure. When we believe we can’t do something, it actually becomes a reality. Working on your weaknesses helps you become capable of dealing with your problems and hone your strengths. It helps you stop perceiving yourself as someone weak and vulnerable. In fact, when you start overcoming your weaknesses, you will be able to find the strength to step out of your comfort zone to do things that you always wanted to do to get ahead in your career and life. In this way, working around your weaknesses helps you become stronger and capable of taking on new challenges that upgrade your perspective and set you on the right track.
You can fight mental illness
People who stay fixated on their weaknesses often find themselves lacking the motivation to do anything life-changing. When you are not completely aware of your weaknesses, you may overestimate them, leading to low self-esteem.
The solution is to list the weaknesses you think you have and then show it to someone you trust. Ask them to tell you which ones are actually your weaknesses and which ones you only think are. Once you have shortlisted your weaknesses, you will be able to determine where to focus. You will soon notice that your mood will start improving, which will help you fight any mental health issue you may be facing.
Once we know our weaknesses, they cease to do us harm. – Georg C. Lichtenberg
The Bottom Line
Being aware of your strengths is useful for understanding how you are and how you function, which keeps you going and growing. On the other hand, knowing your weaknesses helps you understand things that prevent you from aiming higher and achieving more in your career and life. With this knowledge comes the capability of figuring out ways to work around your weaknesses and prevent them from pulling you behind. So, while you focus on your strengths, being aware of your weaknesses is also worthwhile.
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References
- https://medium.com/@DrNicoleLipkin/you-need-to-know-your-weaknesses-to-boost-your-success-a5afd3426424
- https://addicted2success.com/success-advice/4-reasons-why-finding-your-weaknesses-will-propel-you-to-success/
- https://leaderonomics.com/personal/why-its-important-to-know-your-strengths-and-weaknesses#:~:text=Knowing%20your%20own%20strengths%20and,yourself%20and%20how%20you%20function.&text=Knowing%20your%20weaknesses%20gives%20you,your%20weaknesses%20pull%20you%20behind.
- https://debut.careers/insight/how-to-identify-your-weaknesses-and-turn-them-into-strengths/
Canadian Training Partners, especially Mr. David Johnson, Ph.D., helped the author of this article develop all the research and development work. For all the details, please visit the Canadian Training Partners official website at www.canadiantrainingpartners.ca
