Winning with your strength
Your Strengths and Weakness
“Success is achieved by developing our strengths, not by eliminating our weaknesses.” Marilyn von Savant
What are your strengths?
Your strengths are actively in play when you are energized, engaged and in the zone while you deliver a task brilliantly.
And your weakness is displayed when you are delivering a task while being drained mentally and bored.
Interviewers can pick up your strengths in the interview, so do yourself a favour and know what they are before anyone else. This is why you were hired. This is why your audience believes in you. Leading positive psychologist and strengths researcher, Professor Alex Linley, defines a strength as:
“ a pre-existing capacity for a particular way of behaving, thinking or feeling that is authentic and energizing to the user and enables optimal functioning, development and performance’’.
Oftentimes we are unaware of our strengths as we take them for granted and believe that anybody can do what we have just done. But that is not true. Nobody can do what you do, exactly how you do it. Once you recognise your strengths, you will learn to recognise that of others and together as a team create good works.
How to Identify Your Strengths
Your strengths are a form of energy. The energy you feel when working on an activity that strengthens and invigorates you. When performing in your strength zone, you will feel in control and in charge of the task at hand. Your instincts are very much alive at this moment. You positively look forward to work on that task. Somehow you feel like your brain is growing and you learn something that you feel is important. Last but not least, you feel fulfilled after you are done working on the task at hand. The truth, however, is that not many people get a chance to work in roles where their strengths will be utilised. There are always those activities that will lie more in the area of one’s weaknesses which is not a problem. It’s really a matter of recognition and taking actions accordingly in order to prevent losing sight of one’s strengths.
At the same time, it is important to look at your weaknesses. Remember that they are not what you are not good at. They are not tasks you dismally fail at. Once again, it is about energy. While you discover your strengths by looking or paying attention to tasks that energise and wakes you up, you will also discover your weaknesses by how drained and demotivated you are when working on a specific task. It is not completely a bad thing to identify and know your weaknesses, however, it is important to become aware of them. This way you will begin to choose roles where most of your tasks will support your strengths rather than your weaknesses. You may also develop a strategy to deal with your weaknesses, because truth is, they might just pop up in every role you choose. Here is how you can do this:
- Don't worry too much. Do not stress. Do only what you can.
- Team up with someone who likes doing/ working on the task at hand.
- Offer up- volunteer to do more of that dreaded task, you might just learn to like it and turn it into something good for yourself.
- Perceive/ Reframe- can you see it as one of your strengths after some more involvement? Maybe you can see it in a positive light.