Assess Your Strengths and Weaknesses

“The sun shines not on us but in us.”

John Muir

Now that you have taken a little trip down memory lane, and hopefully gained a few insights into yourself and had fun doing it, you can start preparing yourself for the future.  You need to set yourself on the track to achieve your personal vision.  Twelve Step programs around the world advocate “taking a fearless moral inventory” and turning your life over to a higher power.  The inventory here is a bit of an adjustment of the 12 step moral inventory concept. 

“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

Now that you have taken a little trip down memory lane, and hopefully gained a few insights into yourself and had fun doing it, you need to start preparing yourself for the future.  You need to set yourself on the track to achieve your personal vision.  Twelve Step programs around the world advocate “taking a fearless moral inventory” and turning your life over to a higher power.  The inventory here is a bit of an adjustment of the 12 step moral inventory concept. 

Taking inventory will help you see your strengths and weaknesses so you can be the best person you can be and achieve what you want to achieve. This is not to determine how weak or immoral a person you are or even what a wonderful person you are. The object is to see exactly where your weaknesses lie and what your strengths are. Once you know what your weaknesses and strengths are you can change weaknesses into strengths and appreciate your weaknesses for what they are. You can build on your strengths so you can excel in those areas. In fact, in every weakness and strength, there are extremes and opposites, and fine tuning and adjusting your weaknesses and strengths can make you a much more effective, well-liked, and successful person.

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

― Socrates

Remember that weaknesses can become strengths – that you can build on the experiences that resulted in your weaknesses to come to a greater understanding of who you are and that having experienced and acknowledge a weakness, you can convert it to a strength, or at least minimize it so it doesn’t negatively impact your life.

Don’t get too cocky here; strengths can also turn to weaknesses if they are too extreme. If your character traits are not in balance, your road to success will be difficult. Too much of a good thing can impede your progress. It is important that you complete the following exercises now, before you go on to the next step. If it takes you a little time, that’s OK, but be totally honest with yourself in doing your strengths and weaknesses inventories. A healthy dose of egoism is not bad if it does not result in selfishness and arrogance and overdoing on your strengths can result in the strengths becoming weaknesses if there is not a good balance.

Use the worksheets in your materials to review your strengths and weaknesses, You may have strengths or weaknesses that are not on the prewritten lists but you will be able to add those in on last two exercises.

Appreciating Your Strengths

Naturally, you have strengths; maybe they outweigh your weaknesses, maybe not.  Again, please do this inventory before reading further.  Do it with an open mind and be totally honest with yourself. 

Understanding Your Weaknesses

“Our strength grows out of our weaknesses.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The fact of the matter is we all suffer from a myriad of weaknesses to a greater or lesser extent, so, as painful as it may be; you need to examine your weaknesses.  Be honest and brutal with yourself.  Your weakness inventory is an essential building block in moving on and eliminating weaknesses or turning them into strengths. 

Your Strengths and Weaknesses Summary

Completing the exercises in your materials will give you a good perspective on your personal strengths and weaknesses. Every strength and weakness has an opposite side, if you have marked “always” on any strength or weakness, this is a signal that perhaps you are a bit out of balance, or you are not being totally honest with yourself. The goal is to minimize weaknesses and optimize strengths, to achieve a balance in your life and peace within yourself.

Your inventory is a simple step, just another way to determine where you are right now in your life. Take a look at what you feel are your greatest weaknesses, what is opposite, how can you turn it into strength? Whether it is weakness or a strength, what motivates you to manifest it? What are your strongest motivators? Why are you so friendly or so jealous, or whatever it is that you are the most?

Getting a snapshot of your strengths and weaknesses is not a report card. It is an evaluation tool; it is one more step in your self-awareness journey. As you start on your steps to Infinite Vision, you are going to become who you want to be. You are not going to allow yourself to be defined by others or by self-perceptions that are holding you back.

SEEBEDO Your Strengths and Weaknesses

SEE your strengths and weaknesses for what they are and evaluate how they are impacting your life.

BE honest with yourself and be willing to make changes if necessary.

DO the things you need to do to maximize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses by creating goals and a plan to maximize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses.