Leverage Both Your Strengths & Weaknesses to Reach Excellence
Unlocking your full potential by focusing your energy where it matters most
I am not perfect. No one is. We all have weaknesses. But we also have strengths! The question is: what should we do with them? how should we exploit our strengths and/or our weaknesses to become our Ideal Selves?
Let’s look at ways to maximize the potential of your current strengths, and fill the gaps in your weaknesses.
Discover Your Strengths & Weaknesses
The first step is always awareness. Do you know what your strengths are? What about your weaknesses?
If you don’t know them, that’s alright. Spend some time trying to figure that out by yourself. You can also take a strength assessment such as the CliftonStrengths Assessment to help you out.
Focus on Your Main Strength
Being good isn’t good enough. As Cal Newport once advised
“Be so good they can’t ignore you” — Cal Newport
Focus on this one thing and become really good at it. This is your main strength. This is the mountain you need to climb. For instance, my main strength is business operations. What’s good about it is that, if you are already good at it, you probably enjoy doing it. For that reason, it will make it easier for you to improve, until a certain point…
You indeed need to recognize when it is time to plant your flag and seek new mountains to conquer. The effort you make to get from a 75% grade to a 95% is probably the same as going from 95% to 99%, which would be the same as going from 99% to 100%. Learn to stop focusing on this strength when you are great enough, i.e. perhaps when in the top 5%. After that, you will start to plateau and it would take you way too much effort to become better. There is a whole world separating greatness from perfection.
As you see on this graph, it takes roughly 50 attempts to get a performance of 75. The next 50 attempts will bring you to 90. The next 50 ones to 99. So, find the wisdom to stop at some point. You can get more out of your time by conquering new mountains.
Explore Adjacent Strengths
It’s time to switch skills, and change mountains. While someone tries to go from the top 5% to the top 1% in their main strength, you can get to the top 5% in your secondary strength.
So explore adjacent topics and apply your main strength here. If you are good at maths, perhaps you should continue your journey with computer science.
The underlying power of diversification is that there are synergies between your strengths. So by being in the top 5% of two strengths, you might come out to be better than someone in the top 1% of your main strength. Having this complementarity in skills and strengths allows you to define and solve problems differently, and potentially in a better way.
So your graph of strengths shouldn’t look like the Eiffel Tower, where there is only 1 thing you are good at. You want it to be like the Egyptian Pyramids, with a main strength and many adjacent strengths.
Mitigate Your Weaknesses
There is no interest in spending lots of energy on “fixing” your weaknesses. The goal is not to turn them into strengths, and even less into your main strength. It is simply about mitigating them so that they don’t hinder your progress during your journey.
The good news is that it shouldn’t take you too much time. Apply the 80/20 rule here. With only 20% of effort, you can get 80% of the benefits. Simply spend some time if they feel like a ball and chain to you.
Note that the same synergy effect will appear here as well. Working on your weaknesses might solve your other weaknesses and even improve some of your strengths.
Thank you for reading! 🙏 Keep going on the journey to your Ideal Self with daily tips delivered to your inbox! 😃
And of course, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!
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