Weaknesses – What Is Holding You Back?

You can’t talk about strengths and not discuss weaknesses. There are three types of ideologies around these two highly related concepts. Some people think you should focus one hundred percent on your strengths and forget about your weaknesses. The other idea is to concentrate on eliminating shortcomings continuously. Lastly, the third idea, which I subscribe to, is that you need to do both, but not equally.

The reason behind the first group’s proposition is that by putting all your efforts into your strengths, you will become so productive in what you do that your weaknesses won’t matter. The second group reasons that by continually eliminating your weaknesses, you give more space for your strengths to manifest.

Well, here’s the problem with both of those extreme theories: your strengths and weaknesses span all aspects of your life. Your life contains physical, mental, emotional, and social or spiritual dimensions. If you had all your strengths and weaknesses clustered into one area, perhaps the two theories above would work. But that is rarely the case.

We are all slightly unbalanced and often lean toward one or the other. People who grow up with a significantly better-developed mental side might find themselves left behind physically or emotionally. All combinations you can think of are present in different people at different times in their lives. The critical thing to remember is that they are not isolated boxes closed off from one another.

These life dimensions cross over and interact with each other profoundly and powerfully. When you are in an emotional black hole, you feel it physically and mentally, too. If you are physically sick and weak, you’ll feel it in the energy level you can put toward mental activities. This is an ecosystem that needs some form of balance to function correctly.

Attacking Weaknesses

Therefore I firmly believe that the best combination involves taking the time to identify and name your weaknesses and learning how to work around them while in parallel pushing yourself to become better in those areas where you are naturally strong. To put some numbers on it, the focus should be about 70% on strengths and 30% on weaknesses.

Because you put less emphasis on weaknesses than on strengths, it is imperative first to tackle those weaknesses that impede your progress the most. So, with strengths, you map them to your goals and figure out which ones to sharpen and practice. With weaknesses, you need to identify them in the context of your entire life and choose the one with the most negative impact to work on.

Here’s an example that affects 75% of the population, according to studies: public speaking. Note that, although it matters, your ability (or lack thereof) to speak in proper and compelling sentences and communicate logical and easy-to-understand thoughts is not what drives the fear of public speaking. Behind the words is an emotional fear of looking bad, of sounding stupid, of not being accepted or being rejected, of being humiliated or laughed at.

That is a significant weakness, and if you address that one alone, you could unlock an enormous amount of potential. Perhaps your strength lies in your ability to synthesize ideas into beautiful charts and presentations that are compelling and informative. But you are too afraid to get out there and present them in front of anybody. Getting over that impediment would unlock your ability to leverage your strength, which your weakness has held back.

Methods For Identifying Weaknesses

Much as with your strengths, identifying your weaknesses will require a certain level of self-awareness and introspection. Here are the three fundamental methods you will need to use:

1. Looking at your missing strengths.
2. Self-reflection on your past.
3. Inquiring with your close circle.

1 Looking at your missing strengths

As you went through the strengths exercise, there were items that you didn’t mark as strengths. When you read them, you thought, “That is absolutely not me.” Or, perhaps you took one or both of the strength-finding tests I recommended, and you saw a bunch of low scores toward the tail-end of the results. Your missing or lesser strengths could be a hint toward weaknesses. It’s not 100% that way, but by and large, a meager score or a gut feeling of “This is not me” or “This scares the crap out of me” could point toward a weakness.

Therefore, begin by exploring your strengths through self-reflection and analysis, and look for the ones at the bottom of the list. Note if they are so far down the list that they might, in fact, be weaknesses.

2 Self-Reflecting on your past

Your past is the best indicator of your weaknesses, and you must be open-minded and honest with yourself to uncover what hides in there. Remember that your instinct is to ignore your weaknesses and make your brain focus somewhere else. You don’t want to remember that embarrassing moment when you saw a member of the opposite sex, and you froze before you could say a word. You don’t want to recall the time when you had to present your project in front of your co-workers, and you started sweating through your shirt until you looked like you took a shower in your clothes.

Those are indicators of weaknesses, and your brain is a master at protecting you from those feelings, much as it protects you from putting your hand in the fire after that time you burned yourself. So you must force yourself to remember: you have to go back to those times in your mind and recreate those emotions.

To do so, split your past into chunks of ten years. Depending on your situation, the farther they go, the more cloudy and less clear the memories will be. So start with the most recent ten years. Ask yourself:

Don't be afraid to go personal and in-depth. These questions are very open-ended, and you might be surprised where they take you. Keep in mind that you are talking with another person; don't make it all about you. Ask questions that reveal ways in which perhaps you've hurt or upset these people through your behavior. Those might be hints toward weaknesses.

What Are Your Weaknesses?

I know it's odd to think about and document your weaknesses actively, but please click the download link below and power through this worksheet. Soon you'll be glad you did. Once you complete it, jump straight to the next phase, Discover Your Skills.