Thursday, June 18, 2009

Turn Your Weaknesses Into Strengths

When you start falling behind, your biggest fear must be that your weakness has caught up to you. However, looking at great athletes play, they must have weaknesses too! Those weaknesses can be turned into strengths with a very simple change: A improve-yourself mindset.

This isn’t the same as positive thinking however. This is about finding ways in which weaknesses can be turned into strengths; into something that you are confident about. If you start thinking that your weaknesses aren’t really weaknesses, you’ve just took the first step through your limitations and fears. The next step is to work at it.

Let’s say you aren’t good at typing on the computer. Your first step is to see that it really isn’t a weakness. You can still type right? Now, your next step is to push yourself to improve your typing. Maybe practice once or twice a day for an hour altogether and aim for your goals. By the end of the day, it wouldn’t seem like a liability.

1. Think Differently. What you need to do is to think differently and not get stuck in your narrow world of negative and unsupportive thinking. Thinking that it is a weakness has a negative effect on you because you won’t be thinking about ways to improve but rather ways to increase frustration because you just can’t seem to get out of the invisible box.
2. Set Your Goals. For some goals, you need to sustain it for a long time. Maybe years! Slowly reach it by taking small steps. If you think you’re going too fast, slow down and do it again. What you’re trying to accomplish is making your weakness a strength and not just “doing it.” You want results and just doing it won’t give you any results.

When I started my blog

When I was blogging, I knew my weaknesses were writing, uniqueness and branding. I never excelled at writing. I was just decent enough so people would understand me. This could pose a big problem later on when people see my writing as having many mistakes but later, I just didn’t let it bother me and just write. The more I write, the better I’ll become. That’s all I can do.

I also knew that I would face uniqueness problem later on. After all, everyone hits a bit of writer’s block and can’t come up with ideas. But like writing, all I can do is to find a solution. I found out that I just need to monitor my everyday actions more closely and use it to my advantage.

The last thing I listed I was worried about was branding. I only blogged once before this blog and although it became successful, I also had a lot of luck involved with it. But like what I did before, I just focused on the strengths and used it to my advantage.

What is holding you back?

What do you think you are weak at? Are they preventing you from starting something you have been interested in or from pursuing an aspiration?

Assess yourself and find out what you fear about. Sometimes people think too much of their own weaknesses without realizing it. Step back and think about what you’ve wanted to do or even what you do right now that you hope to improve but can’t because of the “fear”.

Change. Turn Your Weakness Into A Strength

Changing is the hard part but if you’re able to overcome it, it’s the stepping stone to success. Change your mindset to where all of your weaknesses can be turned into strengths. Don’t worry, impossible is nothing like Addidas slogan and it’s true!

1. Assess yourself. Find your weaknesses
2. Find your strength in relation to the weakness.
3. Find a plan to move your weakness to your strength.

Get started on turning your weaknesses into strengths — start right now.

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