It’s a classic question: should you work on improving your strengths, or should you work on addressing your weaknesses? It’s a question with good arguments on both sides, but the best answer is that you should focus on your strengths.
Now that you have the answer, you can now go out and be the best you that you can be. If you need some more convincing on why you should focus on improving your strengths instead of addressing your weaknesses, then allow me to explain.
Winning Requires Competitive Advantage
As much as we want to improve our weaknesses to avoid failure and loss, it’s really our strengths that help us win. Being well rounded might be a good quality to have, but in a competitive situation, the winner is defined by whoever can best achieve a specific goal.
Think of your favorite restaurant. Most people pick based on how much they enjoyed their favorite meals, not on the quality of the other meals on the menu that they would not order. It’s a simple analogy, but it’s applicable for any competitive situation. Victory depends on doing certain things extremely well, rather than doing a lot of different things merely at an acceptable level.
Great will win over mediocre. People will choose impressive over acceptable. People naturally gravitate towards what makes them enthusiastic. The marketing guru Seth Godin tells us to be remarkable or else someone else who is remarkable will win instead of us.
You Are Most Happy When You Enjoy What You Do
Achieving goals are external reasons to focus on your strengths, but there are inner motivations as well. A strength is a natural ability, an innate quality that comes instinctively. According to the renowned psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who studied happiness and productivity, full happiness is achieved only when we are fully using the physical and mental talents given to us. Csikszentmihalyi describes this state as being in “flow.”
Have you ever worked on something that relied one one of your strengths and was so involved that you lost track of how much time went by? Do you remember the sense of fulfillment you had after you finished? My friend, that experience you had was flow.
Is There Enough Emphasis on Strengths?
Unfortunately, not enough people are applying it in practice. In Go Put Your Strengths to Work, Marcus Buckingham describes how a worldwide Gallup survey of employees in large corporations show that only 20% of people regularly apply their strengths at work. Buckingham believes a major reason for this is that society puts too much effort on addressing weaknesses rather than improving strengths.
I believe an additional reason why there’s not enough emphasis on strengths is that we have a natural tendency to focus on our personal insecurities. We are often our worst critics, and what we see as our weaknesses seem to be much more glaring to us than the strengths we possess. This kind of thinking can lead to being a jack of all trades but master of none. We need to set aside our personal egos in order to truly appreciate both our strengths and weaknesses and to recognize where we will get the most bang for the buck.
Should You Ignore Your Weaknesses?
Although my suggestion is to focus on strengths, we may not always have the option to ignore weaknesses. For example, if you are taking a driving exam, you may be a world-class driver if the car is moving forward, but if you don’t know how to handle a car in reverse, you will fail the driving exam.
While your priority should still be on your strengths, here are some strategies to address your weaknesses:
- Improve it to just an acceptable level: For this strategy, you’re not trying to be good at it. You’re only trying to improve it to the point where it doesn’t affect you negatively anymore.
- Offload it to another person: Collaborate with a partner who can work on this weak area for you, or find someone that you can delegate it to.
- Offload it to a system: Instead of a collaborator or an assistant, a system can help you do something you’re not naturally good at. For example, Getting Things Done is a system that can help with personal management.
- Use your strengths to overcome the weakness: Sometimes your strengths can compensate for your weaknesses. Going back to the restaurant example, my favorite restaurant is below average when it comes to customer service, but that doesn’t stop me from waiting almost an hour to get a table to order my favorite dish.
- Ignore the weakness altogether: I debated about putting this strategy first, because in my opinion, many people spend too much time trying to improve on something that they not only dislike and are not good at, but oftentimes are also things that are misperceived to be relevant.
Arguments Against Focusing on Strengths
Scott H. Young wrote that there is too much emphasis on strengths, and suggests instead we should focus on things that we are passionate about. Scott makes an excellent point that whatever we are good at may not align with what we are passionate about. Marcus Buckingham (of Go Put Your Strengths to Work who also worked with StrengthsFinder) addressed such an argument by saying that strengths must include knowledge, skills, and talent, and true talent (defined as the natural born abilities) energizes you when you do it rather than drain you from the effort.
I don’t quite agree with Buckingham’s explanation, but instead, I believe strength and passion are two independent qualities as Scott H. Young explained. Only when strengths align with passion is when you get the fullest experience of the work. Rather than choose passion over strengths as Young suggests, I believe passion should guide us on the strengths that we should most focus on.
Also, Steve Pavlina believes that you should work from your strengths but improve on your weaknesses. His argument is based on the importance of having balance in your life. I agree with Steve that balance is indeed good and that balance is a goal we should all strive for. I also agree with Dr. Csikszentmihalyi that ultimate happiness is when you do things that you’re good at. Balance doesn’t mean doing all things equally well, but instead, balance means doing activities in proportion to how much they add value in your life.
How To Find Your Strengths
This question has been one that interested me for several years. I sincerely believe that we are not properly taught how to discover our true strengths, partly because there is no single, absolute best way for people to discover their strengths.
There are a number of personal traits tests that can give us some idea what our strengths are, but before any of these tests are taken, it’s important to realize that there is no good or bad strengths. People’s strengths are neutral - there are positive ways these strengths can be applied as well as negative ways. Understanding your true strengths require sincere honesty and knowing that good or bad only has meaning when it’s based on how the strengths are applied.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test is an effective one which categorizes people from a total of 16 personality types. The StrengthsFinder 2.0 is another traits test and is attributed to Donald Clifton’s study from surveys conducted on over 2 million people worldwide through the Gallup Organization. StrengthsFinder 2.0 has identified 34 different themes that each person has at some level, and their tests help identify your top five traits. In addition, the psychologist Martin Seligman has identified 24 character strengths, which are a new criteria in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). Links about these personality traits tests are given below (note that StrengthsFinder 2.0 is not free).
译文:
扬长还是改短？
扬长还是改短？这个问题一直争论不休。两种观点的辩论都很精彩。但就我而言，我觉得扬长更好。
既然你已经得到了答案，那么你应该摒弃杂念，尽全力做最好的自己。如果你还需要一些材料来支持自己的选择-扬长而非改短，那么请让我向你阐述：
成功需要强势竞争优势
尽管我们都很希望能够改短，逃离失败,避免造成损失，但是我们最后能取得成功，真正依靠的却是自身优势。多才多艺或许很好，但是在竞争激烈的情况下，却只有成绩最优异的人能获得胜利。
试想想,在你最喜欢的餐厅里，大多数人都会点自己最喜欢的食物，他们并不会因为餐牌上其他可挑选的食物而改变自己的选择。这只是一个简单的比喻，但它却适用于任何充满竞争的场合。在众多工作中仅取得平庸的成绩并不能使你成为胜者，你只有在做某一件事取得特别骄人成绩的时候，才有可能成为胜者。
杰出胜于平庸。人们只会选择最杰出的，平庸没有意义。因为，人们总是会本能地被那些能激起自己激情的人所吸引。从事市场营销的印度教导师Seth Godin先生告诉我们，我们只有做出杰出的成绩，才会引起别人的关注，才可能获得成功。否则，只会被其他人所淹没。
只有做自己喜欢的事情的时候，才会最开心。
达到目的只是扬长的一个外在原因，其中也存在着一些内在的动力因素。一个人的长处是他与生俱来的才能。从事快乐与工作能力研究的著名心理学家Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi(米哈里教授)说，一个人只有在充分发挥自己身心优势的时候，他的幸福感才会到达最高峰。米哈里教授把这称为“心流”理论。
你是否曾经尝试过因为太投入做某一件事情，并在扬长的过程中忘记了时间的流逝? 你还记得工作之后是什么感觉吗？我亲爱的朋友，这种经历就是“心流”。
你有足够重视自己的优点吗？
遗憾的是，很少人学会在生活中扬长。在《现在,发现你的职业优势》一书中，马库斯·白金汉说到，一份针对全世界公司职员的盖洛普民意调查显示，当中只有２０％的职员会经常在工作中发挥自身优势。马库斯·白金汉 相信其中一个最主要的原因就是社会太多关注改短而非扬长。
关于我们不够重视自身优势培养，我认为其中存在着一个传统原因，那就是我们天生对自己有一种不确定感。我们经常会很严厉地批评自己，对我们自己而言，缺点总是比优点更容易引起关注。这种思维方式将会导致通百艺而无一长的惨剧.我们应该把自满情绪放一旁，正确检视自己的优势和劣势究竟是什么，知道自己怎样才可以做到少付出却得到最大的回报。
应该忽视自己的缺点吗？
虽然我建议应该更多地扬长，但这并不意味着我们可以忽视自己的缺点。假如说，现在你正在考试，考车牌。车子前进的时候，你或许可以开得很好，技术拼得上世界一流水平。但是如果你不知道怎么倒车，你一样会以失败告终。
在建议更多地扬长的同时，这里有一些改短的策略:
1, 改短要适可而止。不要试图把劣势转变为优势。只要短处不会带来不良影响就好了。
2. 求助他人。关于改短，你可以找一个在这方面擅长可以帮助你的人，或者找一个你可以求助的人。
3. 求助一个系统。不需要一个合作伙伴或助理，一个软件系统就可以帮助你完成天生并不擅长的事情。例如，Getting Things Done(尽管去做)就可以一个帮助你计划个人安排的实用软件。
4. 用优势克服劣势。有时候，自身的优劣是可以互补的。再拿餐厅做例子吧，当谈及顾客服务这一块，我喜欢的餐厅倒不少。但我还是会排接近一小时的队，只为等来一个位子，点我喜欢吃的菜。
5. 忽视所有缺点。我考虑着把这一点放在第一部分，因为在我看来，很多人消耗了太多时间在努力完善他们不感兴趣又不擅长的事情上面,但是他们并没有发现,在这个过程中时间也在不经意间流逝了。
反对扬长的辩论
Scott H. Young写道，较于各种重视优势发挥的观点和建议，我认为我们应该更多地关注那些能够轻易吸引我们注意力的事情。他提出了一个很好的观点，我们擅长的事情并不一定和我们渴望的事情相一致。马库斯·白金汉（《现在,发现你的职业优势》和《长处辩识》的作者）提出这样一个争论，他说，优势应该包括知识，技能，才能和真正的才能（指与生俱来的能力）。这样，在你运用优势的时候，优势就会发挥最优的作用，避免做无用功。
我并不能同意马库斯·白金汉 教授的观点。但是相反，正如Scott H. Young说的，我认为一个人所具有的优势跟他的喜好是两个独立的部分。只有当你的优势和喜好相一致的时候，你才能充分地享受工作。我不认同Scott H. Young喜好高于优势的说法，我认为喜好应该在最大发挥优势这个方面起导向作用。
同时，Steve Pavlina 认为人应该在工作中发挥优势条件，但同时也应改变自身劣势。他的观点基于生活中和谐的重要性。我同意他的观点，和谐的确是美好的，并且也应该是我们一生所追求的。同时，我也同意米哈里教授的观点，只有做自己擅长的事情时，人才会真正快乐。和谐并不是说所有的事情都必须做好，相反，和谐指的是按照每一件事情对自己生活的重要意义来决定要不要做。
怎样发现自己的优势呢？
好几年前我就已经对这个问题产生兴趣了。我坚信，过去长辈们并没有正确引导我们应该如何发现自身优势。而另外一个原因是，现在仍没有一个简单，绝对，完美的方法帮助人们去发现自己的优势。
关于认识和了解自身优势，现在有许多个性测试可以为你提供一些信息。但是在接受测试之前，你必须意识到优势自己并没有好坏之分。优势本身是没有任何色彩可言。它既可利用在好的方面，也可以在坏事中发挥作用。要了解自身真正的优势就必须做到诚挚，坦白，要知道优势的好坏之分完全取决于人们究竟是以什么方式发挥优势的。
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) 测试是一个很有效的测试，它把人们的性格总共分为16种不同的类型。The StrengthsFinder 2.0是另一个性格测试，它来自于唐诺·克里夫顿先生的调查研究，通过盖洛普组织，其调查对象在世界范围内已超过两百万人。这个测试分为34个不同的主题而每一个人都处在某一个水平上。他们通过测试就可以知道自己性格前五位的排名了。除此之外，心理学家马汀.塞利格曼也列出了24种具有优势的性格特征。这24种优势性格已经成为现在美国精神病协会诊断和统计手册中的评定标准了。点击上文出现的个人性格测试了解自己的性格吧（请注意StrengthsFinder 2.0测试是要收费的哦）。