Superman has Kryptonite. Batman has the Joker. Achilles had his heal. We all have a chief weakness. We all have an arch enemy. We all have something that stops us from getting what we want.
Previously, I wrote about my strengths. It’s important to work in your strengths. This is where you’ll find your greatest joy, where you’ll produce your best results and where you’ll find sustained success.
It’s also important to acknowledge your major weaknesses.
In years gone by it was suggested that you should work to eliminate your major weakness. All this did was make us average at a whole bunch of stuff.
Today, the view is to work in and develop your strengths. And, your weakness… Well, you do need to recognise them and ensure they don’t drag you down. If they do you might need to work on them to grow them to an acceptable standard, build a system to overcome them or find someone else to cover for you in that area.
[Tweet “Should you be working on a weakness or your strengths?”]
I repeat… the goal is simply to raise the standard of your weakness so that it no longer stops you getting what you want.
Yesterday, I went for a walk and had a long chat with my coach and good friend Mark Molony.
We talked about the adventures and challenges we each faced over the past year. And, most importantly we reflected on what lessons we still needed to learn or what things we needed to get better at.
By my standards, I had a bad year last year. I had a few successes and a few things that didn’t go to plan. This inspired me to look for some lessons and learnings.
From our conversation, Mark challenged me to focus on my weakness: completing things. As an innovator and creator who loves to start things, completion is my kryptonite. And, I think it has cost me over the years where I haven’t completed my book writing projects.
Here’s some questions for you to consider to reveal your chief weakness:
In the same way that I’ve publicly shared my chief weakness, you might like to do the same in the comments below. It might just give you some power around admitting and then taking action to overcome it.
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We talked about the adventures and challenges we each faced over the past year. And, most importantly we reflected on what lessons we still needed to learn or what things we needed to get better at.