Strength and weakness have the same life span and it really comes down to how you view it in the long run.
Inside of all of us is a good dog and a bad dog and the one we feed the most often is the one that perseveres.
I am shy at times and nothing I can say or do will convince someone if they don’t see it for themselves. I can talk about a wide range of topics with authority, either because I studied it or experienced it but again, nobody will believe that unless they witness me “freezing” I have given many presentations, taught many classes and even given some speeches but there are some environments I cannot feel comfortable in. I can talk to a complete stranger or a group of people without any difficulty but put me in a room with a certain personality type or have the topic be something I’m uncomfortable with and I will clam up.
This weakness does not serve me in any way whatsoever..it has hampered me from the beginning and back when I was in college I took 4 different speech classes and dropped them all on the first day until I found a “room” I liked.
I have never lost a job over it nor have I ever had a panic attack…but in my mind I cannot let loose in some environments.I eventually got much better at it because I stopped avoiding it and babying myself, I put on my big boy pants and faced the challenge and it became much smaller. Nowadays I don’t think about it very much at all.
The weakness became something I worked on and I eventually became competent and few people would know it was an issue at one time. The key was to stop making it such a monumental event in my mind and just try to make progress.
Strengths are a slippery slope for some…in my experience it was a double aged sword in the sense that I was so busy only playing to my strengths that I neglected the use of other tools.
When I was a kid I was a slightly above average athlete but sure enough I could not compete with the hard working children because they had the discipline. In baseball, I could throw it a mile and I could hit pretty well but I couldn’t catch something if someone put it in my glove. In basketball, same thing…I could shoot well but couldn’t be bothered to dribble the ball so when it came time to try out for a team I would always get chosen but I was a practice player not a game player.
So, you see…there is a down side to a strength and it all depends on whether it is in balance with the other things we need to be productive.
In my career I try to use a matrix of time management and it helps me to do the most difficult things earlier in the day and there are times I am very efficient but there are other times I struggle a little but if I complete those tasks earlier I can get on with the day a lot easier.
By the way, I cured my baseball weakness by learning to go whole days without throwing at all in practice and I’m happy to report it forced me to develop into a more complete ballplayer. Strength and weakness written by Ken Bownes
