Weaknesses: Four Strategies to Overcome Yours

Strengths and Weaknesses

Previously, we talked about finding out about our strengths as the key to happiness and success. We also touched on working on our weaknesses. At least, I shared my weakness in not completing things and what I was going to do about it.

Today, I wanted to go a little deeper and share four strategies you can use to overcome your weaknesses.

1 Do Nothing

The good news is for some weaknesses you don’t need to do anything about them. For instance, I have a weakness for ice cream. I love it. I particularly love it when the weather’s hot. However, it’s not really something I need to do anything about as it’s not causing any major problems for me.

[Tweet “If your weakness is not hurting your success then ignore it and stick to building your strengths”]

The point of working in your strengths and not your weaknesses is to gain great satisfaction and success from your efforts. If you tried to fix all your weaknesses then you’d simply turn out to be average at a whole bunch of things. Not a good career strategy.

Action: Assess your weaknesses and decide: Is this a problem worth addressing? If it is put one of our next three strategies to work. If not, do nothing.

2 Partner, Outsource, Employ

The wonderful thing about finding out about your strengths is when you compare them to other people. Soon, you’ll realise, ‘Hey I’m really good at this, and you’re really good at that, how about we work together on this…’

In other words, you may not need to work on your weaknesses if you can partner with someone who has your weakness as their strength. For instance, I’m not great at finishing things so I could partner with someone who is.

I could employ this person as a coach to help on a part-time basis, or hire a permanent staff member to plug the gap long-term. I could also outsource the whole activity, for instance, find a ghost writer to write my books for me. Or, I could partner with someone to work together.

Action: Identify your weakness. Then, identify someone who has this weakness as their strength. And, create a way to work together.

3 Build Systems

One of the great tools in most people’s lives today is their smartphone. For me, it’s a great reminder device. I can put all of my appointments into a calendar and set an alarm to ring to make sure I get there on time. At the supermarket, I have a list of items on my phone that I simply pull out to remind me what I’m supposed to buy. I use the app Things for Mac as my list making tool. These are simple examples of systems to implement to overcome your weaknesses.

Action: Write down very specifically what your weakness is. Then, identify the steps you could take to overcome it. Next, look for some phone apps or other systems that you could employ to trump your weakness.

4 Work on It

The fourth strategy is what I shared in my previous post about my weakness for completing things. This is something I need to get better at. I don’t have to be great at it, I just need to be better. So, I’ve created a project around completing things. I’ve started with the easy things of washing the dishes every time I finish using them. I now say my meal is not complete until the dishes are done.

You can create a project in two ways: to achieve an overall task, like writing a book. Or, you can create a project to practice and learn a new habit, like cleaning up the dishes.

Action: Think about the project you would create to overcome your weaknesses. Do you want a big result to prove you can do it? Or, do you want to build a habit that you do every day?

Let me know how you’re getting on with overcoming your weaknesses by adding a comment below.