Do you know your personal strengths? A very easy question, but if I would be the interviewer in an job-interview, what would you answer? Can you name your biggest personal strengthsinstantly?

Knowing your personal strengths and weaknesses can help you a lot in choosing the right career or making good decisions. Becauseif you are able to focus what you do around your personalstrengths, you have the chance to create something remarkable, while making it look like its almost effortless for you.

Yourbiggest personal strength is what is easy for you.[Tweet this!]

And probably not easy for everyone else. This is what you do best and where your real talents are. If you want to have a comfortable life you should focus on using those strength to the fullest, because thats where you have ancompetitiveadvantage and where you can create the most value for other people.

Also, similar to knowing your personal values, knowing your strengths and weaknesses raises your self-awareness and gives youclarity.

When you try to find your own strength, think about what comes naturally easy for you. And dont choose attributes that you would like to have or that you admire. This is a typical trap. Especially avoid those which seem hard to do for you.

Instead choose those that are describing your core.What is so obvious that you almost doesnt notice it in you anymore, since it is like your very nature?

Here are some examples of typical peoples strengths:

Choose those that fit yourstrengthsand then compare them against each other to bring them into an order. 1 is your biggest strength and 5 (or do 10 if you like) is at the 5th place. When you compare them ask yourself: What can I do better?

My own biggest personal strength are:

I would love to read your own list in the comments below!

It can also be interesting think about a big strength you have that isrelativelyrare in most other humans. For instance strategic thinking is a relatively rare quality, while for instance confidence or creativity is not really. So when you are thinking about your career, maybe you should build your work around those personal strengths that you do possess but most other people dont. Then you can create the most value for others.

Its also important not to confuse strengths with likes. What you like to do is notnecessarily what you do best. It can be, but its not a given. Of course, for a successful career you want to combine these twoin order to overlap your strengths with your passion.

Equally important as knowing your personal strengths is knowing your personal weaknesses. Those areattributesthat you will have a hard time when doing it, its difficult for you. Thats why you should try to let people who are better than you do this.

Everybody has weaknesses. Its a natural thing, humans are not perfect. So dont beembarrassedto look at your weaknesses. It will help you to improve yourself to know them.

And here are some examples of typical peoples weaknesses:

There are probably more, so dont hesitate to use them and write them into the comments.

Here are my personal top 5 weaknesses:

So I have to work on those weaknesses in order to not make them matter too much in my life. Everybody has 1 or 2 weaknesses that you have to keep in check. If you dont they will produce negative consequences and may even disrupt your efforts while you use your personal strength.

So identify them, and if you are brave enough, write them into the comments below as well! 🙂

Thats a tough question. In general its much better to focus on using your personal strengths and try to control your weaknesses. A good business strategy can be to focus your energies on your strength only and try to outsource or delegate tasks that would bring you into your personal weaknesses.

On the other hand,facingyour weaknesses can have a lot of potential for personal growth. If you are not good at something, improving even slightly can have a nice positive impact on your overall quality of life.

An example would be if you are a lousy cook, improving your cooking skills slightly could give you benefits in everyday life. You dont have to be a master to profit from cooking. Same would be if you are not good at sports. Starting to run can be really helpful for your overall health, although you will never run a marathon or start at the olympic games.

I remember adocumentaryabout MichaelJordanwhere it said that Jordan was never good at shooting from the distance, but he improved it to a master level by constant practice. Same with his defensive game. It said He asked what are my weaknesses and how can I make those my strength?Well I would say these where no real weaknesses, they just werent his absolute strengths in the game. Still, by almost fanatic practice he improved even this part of his game. It may would have given other results if he would had to play chess against Garry Kasparov on the basketball court 😉

So knowing your personal strengths and weaknesses can give you a lot of insights in understanding and changing yourself. And it will help you to make the right decisions.

Please do the little exercise and reveal your own personal strengths and weaknesses. Write them into a comment and I might comment back on them later.

Read the rest here:
What Are Your Personal Strengths and Weaknesses?