PERSONAL STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

 

Objetive: Due to the increasing competitiveness to find a job, people are looking for a way to try to be a better candidate by studying their strengths and weaknesses. Studying about your strengths and weaknesses addresses your self-knowledge. When studying about this topic, you need to be as sincere as possible for the results to be true.

Strength is those capacities that can be acquired through the will. In this way, it does not mean that it is a skill, but rather the way you adapt to certain environments, or the way you feel comfortable with a certain task at work.

On the other hand, weakness consists of some negative behaviors, or negative thoughts that prevent us from being more proactive at work or from doing a task efficiently. Sometimes it may be a case of a lack of interest in learning or doing the task.

There are some websites that help you discover and understand your strength and weakness and you can also seek for a psychologist.

 

Reflective - Studying this theme I learned that nowadays it is extremely important to know yourself.

If we think that before the pandemic the labor market was already very competitive, now during the pandemic it is even more so. Due to lack of jobs, few job openings and many people competing to be the ideal candidate, I learned that we need to know our weaknesses and strengths.

It’s good to say that “before you consider your weaknesses, take a little time to consider your strengths. Not only is it a positive tone to start out on, but by identifying your strong points, you may actually be able to take advantage of them to help strengthen your weaknesses”. (Sykes, 2018)

Often our weakness is not due to lack of skill, but to the work environment itself. For example, we can leave a company where we were the most creative to access another where our capacity for innovation does not exceed the average. 

Searching for self-knowledge we can also end up discovering things that we didn't know we had of weakness and strength. 

It is also important because when we discover our strengths and weaknesses, we can work to improve these areas and become better candidates as well as more efficient at work.

Sometimes we might know intuitively areas we need to improve on, but never actually go one step further to make the changes we need to improve proactively. (Mead, 2020)

Something curious is to learn about your strength, because sometimes you use it too much or use it focusing only on one part. When you learn more about your strength you can use it more efficiently.

It is worth remembering that for a company it is extremely important because knowing the strengths and weaknesses of its employees, the company can work on this in assembling a strong team in effectiveness.

 

Interpretive - By acquiring your self knowledge, having an idea of ​​your weaknesses and strengths, you can establish a plan to improve them.

For example, if you have never worked out in your life, and you want to lift 30 kg on each arm, without a preparation you will not be able to on the first day. You need a plan, time, first you start lifting 5 kg a day, then you go to 10 kg and so on.

That way, you have to make a plan to be able to improve it. It won't be overnight, but every day you can try a little harder, you can set a goal to achieve, either daily, weekly or monthly.

Thus, the main tip is know your weaknesses, but don't try to be good at everything, because the risk, on the contrary, is that you will have an average performance in all areas and your differential will remain undefined. Some points considered weak can originate from an isolated event or a failure that created a barrier, preventing overcoming. Your goal should be to identify the aspects that are really holding back growth and create strategies to get around them.

 

Decisional - To put all the knowledge acquired into practice, I wrote down on paper what I needed to improve and what I wanted to achieve, then I set a goal and a date for it. Sometimes, we just need to take the first step, something that can be simple. For example, if professionally your weakness is communication in public, set a goal to take a public speaking course.

During the process of improving your skills, the most important thing is to be consistent, don't give up, just stay focused.

That way, setting your goal and setting up your strategy to achieve that goal,  it will make you get the results you want and expect.

You can also analyze your strength and weakness taking the assessment test proposed by MartinSeligman. Taking this test is a very good action to take, as the test is free and at the end it shows how your personality is, your weaknesses and strengths.

References

Mead, E. (2020, 11 16). Positive Psychology. Retrieved from positivepsychology.com: https://positivepsychology.com/what-are-your-strengths

Sykes, T. (2018, 10 17). Getting Stronger Is All About Strengthening Your Weaknesses. Retrieved from entrepreneur.com: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/321774

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