Recognizing Personal Strengths and Weaknesses
Everyone has special abilities about themselves that give them their individuality. These qualities can be separated into specific qualities we know as strengths and weaknesses. To grow as a person, you have to identify our own strengths to help overcome your weaknesses. Understanding your positive traits and identifying areas of weakness will make you more aware of how you should set up your life to live more effectively, and not punish yourself for thinking you’ve failed in certain areas.
I will share a personal strengths assessment observed from a past client and explain how jane doe can plan to overcome their weaknesses in their personal and professional life. Her strengths have always allowed her to be successful in everything she has attempted in my life. I will be using the atlas “Mary” to refer to this client.
Through taking a strengths and weaknesses session with August Joy & Co., Mary was determined to find out what she needed to better understand who she was and how to improve her quality of life. In order to assess her strengths, we had to do an audit and assessment of her work, family, and social backgrounds.
Mary’s Strength - Communication
“I consider my communication a strength because I communicate effectively with the guest, colleagues, and my managers. I understand the guest needs either speaking or in writing. And I deliver the service according to their need. As I work in guest services most of the time I communicate to the callers via phone. My colleagues and managers understand clearly what I am trying to say to them and there is more verbal communication than writing on my job profile and I have never had misunderstandings in communication with my colleagues and guests. Sometimes I write emails and reports effectively to my manager, so it shows that I communicate effectively.”
Communication: - The imparting or exchanging of information or news. Any act by which one person gives to or receives from another person information about that person’s needs, desires, perceptions, knowledge, or affective states. Communication may be intentional or unintentional, may involve conventional or unconventional signals, may take linguistic or non-linguistic forms, and may occur through spoken or other modes.
In order to use strengths effectively, it’s important that to have a clear idea of what they are and how they can be used or are already in use. Many people have a hard time identifying their strengths. We spend so much time focusing on the negative. You have to be able to articulate the positive even though you are feeling negative. This is because focusing on your weakness is very much affecting your self-confidence. However, this does not mean that you are ignoring the negative events, but you accept them, look for the best, and obtain ways to turn them into positive. There, you will see opportunity and hopes to restart again and use your strengths more easily.
The first step is to familiarize yourself with strengths.
Strengths are natural capabilities and skills that each person has. When a person uses their strengths, they tend to feel energized, and they report higher levels of self-esteem, well-being, and other desirable outcomes.
As mentioned before, many people have a hard time identifying their strengths, some strengths are invisible to the person who possesses them. The benefits of spotting strengths are: better able to look for strengths in general, Increased sense of well-being, More positive personal and professional relationships, Encourages you to recognize strengths in others.
Be sure not to confuse strengths for skill. For example, “being a mother” isn’t a strength, but “patient” and “flexible” are. You can do this by asking yourself questions such as “What makes you good at mother?” or “What about yourself allowed you to be successful in this area?”.
As for those weak areas. Remember life is a never-ending learning experience. One of the most important lessons we can ever learn from comes from within. As we go through life, it is important that we learn who we are, and have the ability to identify and grow from our own personal strength and weaknesses. Knowing what we are good at and what we are weak in is the only way we can truly grow as individuals. This knowledge helps us to achieve the goals and curate the life we want for ourselves and families. When taking steps toward improving your life we are not just depending on self but building confidence in God and partnering with the Word of God. Psalm 116:2 reads, but we build our confidence in God by consistently turning to Him…. Ask God for help with our weak areas and praise him for your strengths.