There are many people who tend to focus solely on their strengths and try their best to improve those qualities as much as possible. It is not rare to find someone who is actually afraid to face their weaknesses and their imperfections so they simply bury them in a box and ignore them as much possible. When it comes to a person’s personal improvement though, it is important for them to find and understand their weaknesses as well, if they wish to grow and improve to their fullest potential.

Knowing your weaknesses is as important as knowing your strengths. These weaknesses which you often try to leave aside, can limit you from actually chasing after your dreams and achieving a lot of great things in your life. Nonetheless, the good thing about weaknesses is that you are able to improve them.

The best way for you to find your weaknesses is to take a pen and paper and start by writing down all the things that scare you or hold you back. Before you start going into detail and picking certain weaknesses, make sure that you write about all the things that cause a problem in your everyday life.

For example, you can write down about how you really dislike being around new people or how some days you slack off at work and don’t get everything done on time. The next step for you is to turn those into actual weaknesses, like being shy or being lazy.

After you finish writing all of them down, go ahead and pick five which you think represent your personality the most. These five weaknesses are the ones likely holding you back in your everyday life and which will need the most improvement.

Here are 4 ways in which improving your weaknesses can help:

1. It can make you stronger

Weaknesses can hold us back and make us see ourselves in a way that is way too vulnerable and weak. Most of the time though, this is not who we truly are and we can change a lot of things in our lives if we just believe in ourselves.

Finding your weaknesses and working towards improving them can truly help you get some much needed strength in many aspects of your life. You will be able to tackle problems a lot easier and you will know that no matter what comes your way you will be able to pull through successfully.

Moreover, you will be able to go ahead and do things that would normally be out of your comfort zone, like apply for a job you always wanted or talk to a certain person you never had the courage to. Finding your weaknesses and turning them around can give you a new perspective in life and help set you free of things that would normally hold you back.

“Don’t weaken yourself by surrendering to your weaknesses. Strengthen yourself by conquering your weaknesses.” – Dr T.P.Chia

2. It can help you focus on improving yourself

Understanding and accepting your weaknesses can be the best way for you to start working towards improving yourself. Most of the time, we are the only ones who hold ourselves back from further improving and chasing after our dreams.

If you have decided this is the time for you to make a change, start by asking those around you what they believe is a weakness of yours that affects the relationship between the two of you. This is the best way to start working on yourself and improving yourself so you make those who matter to you happier.

Even though this might be a baby step compared to others, it can be just the boost that you need in order to start taking bigger and more important steps towards improving yourself and creating a new life for you.

3. It can help you fight mental illness

A person who solely focuses on their weaknesses is often very weak and has no motivation to do anything important to change their lives. This is a case where these people don’t actually know about their weaknesses but they usually believe that they have far more weaknesses than they actually do.

This causes their self-esteem to become very low, and they feel completely unmotivated to do anything. In order to turn this situation around, you will have to go ahead and list your weaknesses on a piece of paper. Have a person you really trust go through this list and tell you which ones are truly there and which are not.

Having the help of someone who knows you well should help you start understanding that you are being too harsh on yourself and that you need to break out of this difficult circle. When you start working on those weaknesses and actually start doing something about them, you will see that your mood will improve and you will be fighting against the mental health problem that has been bothering you and holding you back.

“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” – Thomas A. Edison

4. It can help you become a better version of yourself

One of the most important things to keep in mind is that nobody is perfect and nobody started out as successful and confident. It always takes time to become either of those things and in order to get there, a person will have to work hard on getting to know themselves better and focus on making all their weaknesses into strengths.

While having weaknesses isn’t a bad thing, it can turn into a problem when the person spends too much time focusing on them and analyzing all the scenarios where their weaknesses can hold them back. It is important that you always accept and understand your weaknesses but also work on improving them in order to live the life that you dream of.

Share with us a weakness you were able to turn into a strength! Let us know in the comments below.

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