Look to Your Weaknesses to Find Your Strengths
A while ago, I watched a male cardinal sitting on my backyard fence. He was scanning the horizon for something, probably for a female to woo. How majestic and self-assured he seemed, yet foolish in his smugness. Didn’t he know that his bright red color was going to attract the attention of every predator in the vicinity? Doesn’t he know that his coloring is a weakness?
He didn’t seem to be working on overcoming this weakness as far as I could tell. He had only one thing on his mind and that was to attract a mate. For the cardinal, his color, song, and display are meant to make him attractive. He sings with gusto and puts all his energy into finding a mate despite the danger.
And therein lies the paradox. Weaknesses and strengths are inextricably tied. Every strength will have a weakness associated with it and every weakness points to a potential strength.
How is this so?
First, pick one of your weaknesses. What is it? What have people complained about your whole life? What do others find inconvenient or annoying about you? What have you always considered to be one of your weaknesses? Are you messy? Lazy? Hasty? Are you critical? Stubborn? Stingy?
Your weakness is a byproduct — if you will — of a strength. The strength shows itself in the methods and style you use to accomplish something. Just as an organism produces waste products in the processing of food and in the creation of action, your strengths produce byproducts. Whatever you are trying to accomplish in pursuit of a goal will have some sort of byproduct. Some byproducts are positive of course but some are negative. It is these negative byproducts that come across as weaknesses to others.
Examine the weakness that you picked and ask yourself, “What am I trying to accomplish that causes this weakness?” What are you trying to do or what are you working towards?
Perhaps you’re action-oriented (a strength) and you like to get things done. You sit down with your to-do list and you just move through all the items with great speed. Great, isn’t it? Well, in your effort to get things done, others might see you as hasty or inaccurate. You’ve gotten things done but maybe the things you got done have mistakes. Does your boss write in your review every year that you’re not “detail-oriented” enough? Or that you make too many mistakes? This is a clue that your strength is “getting things done” but the byproducts are inaccuracy and lack of detail.
So what can you do with this knowledge?
If you are at a point in your life where you’re not sure what your strengths are or what you might be good at or what profession or calling your should pursue, take an inventory of your weaknesses. Weaknesses are often easier to identify than strengths. Then follow the trail back to the source. What strengths do your weaknesses point to? Once you’ve identified your strengths, you can figure out which profession might be best for you or how you can tweak your existing job to make better use of your strengths.
Once you’ve identified your strengths, what do you do about the weaknesses? The answer is to mitigate them instead of trying to eliminate them. People focus much of their attention on eliminating their weaknesses and not enough on developing their strengths and that’s a shame because success in life hinges on one’s ability to put one’s strengths to work and not on one’s ability to quash weaknesses. Eliminating weaknesses is virtually impossible since the best way to eliminate a weakness is to weaken or eliminate the associated strength.
For example, one of the most important issues facing us today is global warming. How come no one is suggesting eliminating all the factories and going back to horses and buggies? Because no one wants to give up the strengths — mass production and fast locomotion — to reverse global warming. Instead, everyone is trying to mitigate the byproducts (the weaknesses). Ideas range from growing and eating one’s own food to making more fuel-efficient cars to purchasing carbon offsets.
You should do the same with your weaknesses (no, not by purchasing weakness offsets… though that would be great if there were such a thing). Ask yourself what you can do to mitigate your weaknesses. How can you soften your hard edge so you’re not seen as abrasive or slow down so that you’re not seen as too hasty? In what ways can you get assistance on the job so that you’re working from your strengths but managing your weaknesses so that they don’t interfere with your strengths? Perhaps you can team with someone who has complementary strengths. If you’re a doer who goes through the to-do list in short order, then pair up with someone who’s a thinker and will think through the consequences of the actions before moving forward. If these tactics don’t work then you might consider the possibility that you are in the wrong job or career.
So, identify your strengths by looking to your weaknesses for clues, then work from your strengths and mitigate your weaknesses so that they don’t interfere with your strengths.
