Strengths and Weaknesses
Our EDGE team recently took an in-depth test to reveal our unique skills and talents individually. I must say, I was a bit disappointed to see focus, organization, and attention-to-detail at the bottom of my “skill list”. It turns out I’m pretty nice, an encourager, and a bit of a cheerleader in the workplace (I didn’t really think of these qualities as “skills”, but am glad to see that they are). Basically, the test allowed me to see and discuss how what I thought were simply personality traits (like empathy), were actually skills and were valuable in the work place. The test summary cautioned me about things I might do, with good intentions, meant to cheer someone up, that could actually shut down others expressing negative feelings.
Knowing your strengths is more just like knowing your real self. Knowing your strength and weakness implies understanding the areas you can easily perform better as compared to other areas. Similarly, your weaker areas tell you that you need to be prepared to overcome challenges and fight a bit extra in order to reframe the challenge in those area where you are weak.
Your strengths and weaknesses could be your inherent attributes. It can also be those external factors that could interflow with your inherent attributes to form part of your personality. Your strengths could be comprised of your soft and hard skills such as adaptability (my strongest skill, number 1 of 34) , problem solving skill, integrity, steadfastness, commitment, creativity, focus , etc. What is necessary is to determine which one to focus on and how to tame its powers to make it profitable to your objective, and that of any team you may be working on. For example, if I’m more empathetic than my coworkers, could I become distracted by “feelings over facts”? Probably. So I can work on that.
Self-awareness is essential for one’s growth and attainment of desired heights of success. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses places you on an advantaged position which not only empowers you but propels you forward on your chosen path. The awareness and consciousness of your weaknesses, which are your flaws, shortcomings, and limitations helps you navigate your way around them. It also allows you to work on them in such a way that they begin to propel you toward success. In short, you can reframe so called weaknesses into positives through conscious effort. Weaknesses are viewed as temporary because one can always improve on the weak areas or make some necessary adjustment.
Weaknesses, therefore, do not become permanent unless we give them the permission to become so. Understanding the role which your strength and weakness play in your personal development is that which gives you charge over them to be transformed.