12 Reasons You Shouldn't Be Scared of Your Weaknesses

"Many people feel fear and shame about their weaknesses. You might be fearful of the consequences of your weaknesses and feel anxious about your weaknesses becoming obvious to others. You might have self-perceived weaknesses like:

• poor discipline
• low ambition
• poor social skills
• being less smart than you'd prefer
• not understanding certain concepts well, like finances
• low extroversion
• low adventurous

When people perceive a weakness within themselves, they usually avoid anything that triggers it. This leads to further atrophy, like if your left arm was weaker than your right, so you always used your right arm.

Instead of fearing your weaknesses, here are some reasons why you shouldn't:

1. People who are good at everything can seem very annoying! Not having weaknesses can alienate others from you, and make you seem stuck up and unrelatable.
2. That's what friends are for. You can easily make up for weaknesses by befriending people for whom your weakness is their strength.
3. You can use your strengths to overcome a weakness, such as if you're great at technology but poor at in-person socializing, then you make friends online.
4. Creativity can come from working around your weaknesses in creative ways. I write a lot more about this in Stress-Free Productivity. If the standard way of accomplishing something is hard for you, your workaround might be ingenious.
5. Being good at everything isn't necessary for success at your goals.
6. Being good at everything isn't necessary for being liked or respected.
7. Vulnerability, like asking for help or advice and revealing a weakness, can build closeness and trust in relationships.
8. Knowing your weaknesses can help with choosing life paths and making big decisions. For example, if you hate mornings then it might make some careers or specialties less workable. Narrowing down your choices can relieve stress.
9. Strengths are often the flip sides of weaknesses, like attention to detail is the flip side of fussiness.
10. Weaknesses aren't set in stone. If you want to work on them, you always can. As alluded to, the best approach is often to use a strength to overcome a weakness, like if you're messy but you're strategic, then you can be strategic about being less messy.
11. Weaknesses sometimes have unexpected positive consequences. For example, I'm self-conscious about having less time to devote to work than my colleagues because I have a baby and homeschool my older child. However, working quickly sometimes produces especially good work. I might micromanage less or over-explain less.
12. Over time, repeatedly using creative ways to overcome your weaknesses can help you develop unique strengths.

Avoidance is bad for mental health and can cause lots of problems. The less scared of your weaknesses you are, the less you'll avoid scenarios that trigger that shame and anxiety. This will benefit how you feel, what you accomplish, and your relationships."

*We are all bad at something and there's nothing wrong with that. If we were all good at everything, life would be boring and everyone would be the same. Each person is unique and having different strengths and weaknesses allows people to bounce ideas off of each other and build relationships that complement each other. I am absolutely horrible at math and being creative, but I am good at being there for other people and I love science so there's good and bad! I can help my friends with science and they can help me complete art projects! Everything works out the way it's supposed to, so don't be too hard on yourself because you are perfect the way you are! What do you feel is a weakness you may have, but how does it makes you unique?*

#Weakness #Strength #Uniqueness

Please find the full article at Psychology Today.

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