When to Work on Your Weaknesses:

The rule of thumb is to focus on your strengths because that’s where you will get the best returns. But life isn’t all about black and white answers because there are times when developing your weaknesses is going to give you the best returns. This article will help you to identify where to focus on fixing your weakness.

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Fixing weaknesses sounds tempting - who wouldn’t want to eliminate all weaknesses? But the thing is we can’t be good at everything in life. If we spend all our time improving our weaknesses the best we can hope to be is average at everything. We will do better in life when we can accept that we can’t be good at everything because then we can focus on being the best at something.

The exception is where we have a weakness that is holding you back from reaching your potential. But in my personal experience and in my experience coaching people the tricky thing with weaknesses is that often people are unaware of their weaknesses. Put bluntly, the reason why they suck is because they don’t even know they suck in the first place. This means the weakness isn’t just a blockage, it’s a blind spot. And the best place for our minds to hide our own ignorance from ourselves is where we won’t look for it. And that is in areas that we don’t like.

To make an easier structure to work with, I’m going to deal with weaknesses under the following headings:

  • Blockages,

  • Things you hate / avoid

  • Undeveloped strengths and

  • Blindspots

Tip: It can be difficult to keep a positive mental attitude when you're are working on your weaknesses and blindspots. If you find yourself avoiding the problem or getting frustrated because of a lack of progress, then it will help you to reframe the problem. Instead of seeing it as difficult, see it as a challenge for you to overcome.

Instead of seeing the problems in your opportunities, focus on the opportunities in your problems.

Next Steps: Self-Leadership: Developing Yourself

Sometimes developing your skills means working on your weaknesses. Take the first step by improving your self-leadership skills with self-leadership training. Self-Leadership: Developing Yourself is a quick, online training course that you can use to kick-start your self-development.

Tip: Use YOUR Power Hour to stay consistent at investing in yourself

 Comments:

Do you have any questions, comments or tips about self-leadership and developing your weaknesses. Please share in the comments below.