1. Identify Strengths and Weaknesses in Terms of Context
Firstly, forget drawing up a two-column table and listing your strengths on one side and weaknesses on the other without reference to a context. Doing so will be a completely pointless exercise. Without referencing your self-evaluation to a specific situation, you’re likely to wind up feeling overwhelmed and directionless. According to researchers, strengths and weaknesses are highly contextual and dependent on the mix of our values, goals, interests, and situational factors.((Psychology Today: A dynamic approach to psychological strength development and intervention)) Given this, it's helpful to begin by reviewing key situations in your life where you have goals for things to be better than they are. Certain aspects of your work might require you to exercise different skills and knowledge to varying degrees. You might be experiencing challenges in your personal or family relationships. Perhaps you want to master skills at playing a musical instrument, a sport, or develop a creative or performing arts talent. Whichever you choose, get to task on the following:- Determine what skills, knowledge, and style of application will bring the desired outcomes and changes to fruition.
- Review which of those you believe you have.
- Rate how close a fit you believe what you have is a fit to what is required (e.g. 10 might be a perfect fit and zero represents no skills, knowledge, or application capability).
- For ratings you ascribe yourself above zero, ask yourself how easy or challenging it is for you to apply the skills, knowledge, and understanding.
- Ask yourself, “What did I enjoy the most?” and “What did I enjoy the least?”
- easiest to hardest
- effortless to effortful
- ineffective to highly effective
- completely unfamiliar to familiar
2. Carefully Select and Use Self-Assessment Tools
Self-evaluation tools greatly help you to make sense of and organize your strengths and weaknesses. Profiles that emerge from your answers enable you to recognize where it might be best to direct your energy and attention to improve your knowledge and skillset. The formerly known Values in Action survey is now recognized as VIA Character Strengths. Despite the name change, it maintains that every individual—regardless of culture or nation—has varying degrees of 24 character strengths that constitute the best of our personalities.((Oxford Handbooks Online: Character Strengths and Mindfulness)) Character strengths are defined by researchers and psychologists to be positive, trait-like capacities for thinking, feeling, and behaving in ways that benefit oneself and others. The VIA Institute developed the survey from a strong foundation of research indicating how focusing on strengths has multiple benefits:- Increases in self-reported ratings of life satisfaction
- Improved workplace productivity and lower staff turnover
- Higher self-esteem, motivation, goal achievement, and sense of direction
- Shying away from situations because you have less aptitude for navigating through them with ease
- Making excuses to justify poor/lower effort because your natural thinking style isn’t accommodated for
3. Consult Qualified, Trusted Individuals
When we’re asked to describe the strengths we see in our friends, it’s a relatively easy task to do. However, when asked to do this exercise for ourselves, our list of weaknesses tends to carry far more weight than our strengths. The notion we are our own strongest (and often harshest) critics, rings true. Conversely, the Dunning-Kruger effect can also be at play—you might think you’re better than you really are. Founder of money management organization My Budget, Tammy Barton, describes how when undertaking performance reviews with her employees, there are clear differences between men and women. Women underreported their skillset, communicated lower self-efficacy, and shot for lower goals than men. With men, she witnessed more reports reflective of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Because of these (often unconscious) biases we have, getting feedback from those qualified to give you feedback is essential. After all, you wouldn’t ask for advice on how to run a business from someone who has never run a business—nor would you ask your dentist to assess your heart’s health. Finding the right authorities who can help us develop deeper insight into our strengths and weaknesses requires a few steps of due diligence:- Find those you believe might be qualified authorities to help you and research them.
- Check the integrity of their training, skills, experience, and track record.
- Be wary of testimonials as these can be orchestrated, false, and inauthentic.
- Ask yourself if the authority might have their agenda in addition to helping you identify your strengths and weaknesses.
- If you have the opportunity to develop an initial rapport with the person you seek feedback from, take time to do this so you can sense whether or not you feel you can trust their feedback.
4. Test Yourself
Testing ourselves is something we rarely do. We don’t naturally seek out opportunities to have our skills, abilities, and personality characteristics scrutinized. However, this is what will give us the purest discovery and recognition of our strengths and weaknesses. Put yourself through a variety of assessments that test you in several ways:- Skill-based
- Personality and traits
- Breadth and depth of applicable knowledge
- You miss out on opportunities to diffuse emotional and mental discomfort emerging when your weaknesses are highlighted and emphasized.
- You deny yourself the ability to step into opportunities and experiences you truly want.
- You miss opportunities to recognize and capitalize on your strengths.
- You remain stale and stuck.
- Your mindset retains feeling a lowered agency of control to change unfavorable circumstances.
5. Repeat the Process and Re-assess
Repeatedly looking at the previous steps at different times in your life is an invaluable life skill. The more we become adept at assessing and testing our strengths and weaknesses, the more it becomes a normal and healthy part of our life’s journey. Rinsing and repeating the process carries many benefits. You can progress toward your goals faster. You improve your resilience. You can recognize opportunities that will be more enjoyable for you versus those you can expect to feel more challenged and uncomfortable. You can also orchestrate the times when you need to feel more in control of choosing better timing to strategically immerse yourself into uncomfortable challenges. The most wonderful discovery you’ll reach through repeatedly reviewing your strengths and weaknesses over time is that there are no real strengths and no real weaknesses. It becomes more about recognizing where and when your blend of unique skills, attributes, and knowledge are harmonious, helpful, and appropriate and where and when they aren’t.Final Thoughts
There are many ways that you can recognize your strengths and weaknesses, and there are also many ways you can try to tackle them. If you're unsure what to do, just start with these 5 steps and you'll be good to go!More About Strengths and Weaknesses
- 7 Steps to Turn Your Weaknesses into Strengths
- How to Identify and Leverage Your Personal Strengths
- Many of Us Can’t Identify Our Strengths and Weaknesses Because We Misunderstood What They Mean
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