Knowing your own strengths is potentially life-changing.
Strengths are the things you like to do.
Strengths are the things you naturally do well.
Strengths are the things you subconsciously continue to develop – with ease.
By definition, your strengths don’t need fixing or improving.
During our formal education and within society generally, a huge emphasis has been spent on trying to fix or improve.
By definition, the things that need fixing or improving are our weaknesses.
Our weaknesses need to be fixed or improved.
Do you see the disconnect?
Making the conscious decision to utilize your strengths will always be more productive than attempting to operate within the realm of adequately compensated weaknesses.
An underutilized strength is probably still greater than a compensated weakness.
A fully utilized strength will be magnitudes more productive than a fully optimized weakness.
Your strengths are the things that you do better than most other people.
Your weaknesses are the things that many others are better equipped to perform.
This remains true no matter how hard you work at improving or fixing a weakness.
Know the things you do well. Do those things.
Know the things you don’t do well. Get help. Let others handle those things.
Tom Rath’s book Strengths Finder 2.0 revealed my top five strengths. I recommend both the book and the online assessment as great tools for better understanding your own strengths.
Living life focused on your strengths is more fun, more productive, and potentially life changing.
Living life focused on fixing and improving is both negative and exhausting.