Managing Your Strengths

We all have strengths and weaknesses. Success comes from strengths. Failure, on the other hand, comes from doing what we are not good at.

If you wan to succeed in your life, use your strengths, not your weaknesses, to get what you want.

To manage your strengths, according to Robert E. Kaplan and Robert B. Kaiser, ‘… is to accept them. If you literally don’t know your own strengths, you have no way to calibrate or modulate it.’

‘… to stop overplaying your strengths does not mean … to stop using it. It means using the strength more selectively.’

‘overusing one’s strength not only corrupts the strength, but it begets weakness in yet another way.’

‘Leaders who develop versatility don’t lose their range, they embrace it.’

‘Versatility requires knowing when a certain approach is appropriate and when it is not.’

‘You best chance of making change stick is to do both the outer work and the inner work of improving.’

‘… an iterative cycle of reflection and action is required to achieve lasting change: insight begets action begets insight begets action.’

‘Changing yourself is an admirable exercise in self-control. But it is wise to also employ counterweights- process or people- to aid your efforts.’

‘… to accept yourself is to look at yourself as if you are somebody else.’

‘To accept yourself is to be courageously objective about yourself, inside and out.’

Source:

Robert E. Kaplan and Robert B. Kaiser (2013). Fear Your Strengths: What You Are Best at Could Be Your Biggest Problem.