Everyone has strengths and weaknesses.
Both our strengths and weaknesses make up who we are. It would be a mistake to think that that we have no flaws. Conversely, it’s equally detrimental to think that we’re worthless and that we don’t have any redeeming qualities. Recognizing our strengths and weaknesses is part of the ongoing process of bettering ourselves. What areas do I excel at? What are areas for improvement?
An individual’s strengths and weaknesses are like a diamond. They have to undergo significant stress and pressure before they emerge out of the fire as a sturdy jewel. In the same sense, both your strengths and weaknesses have to be put to the test before they can solidify into something valuable. It is only through practice that you realize what you’re good at. On the flip side, it is through embarrassing, painful or sobering experiences that you become aware of your flaws. However, like a diamond, those imperfections can be polished and you can emerge as a stronger, brighter individual.
As one of my close friends would say: There is perfection in imperfection. This is true in both a literal and figurative sense. Your imperfections are a part of who you are, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. To be human is to be flawed. So we should stop trying to chase that nonexistent ideal of “perfection” because we are already perfect when we learn to accept ourselves for who we are, not just the strengths, but also the weaknesses.
Since I think it’s so important to recognize our strengths and weaknesses, I have compiled responses to the following questions:
What are your greatest strengths? What are your greatest weaknesses? How can you go about improving your weaknesses? And optionally, are you happy with who you are?
I would encourage you as a reader to reflect on those questions yourself, especially if you’ve never done so before. Hopefully you’re able to relate to some of the responses below:
(“Personally I believe anyone’s greatest strength tends to be their greatest weakness. For me my greatest strength is my ability to open-heartedly connect with anyone I come across, however my greatest weakness is trusting too easily and getting hurt too frequently. Now I allow myself to be open and connect with people however I am not living to please them or cater to their needs, I have learned to love and respect myself.
Currently I am happy with who I am because I am confident and trust myself. This being said I am always looking for ways to improve who I am as a person and learn more about who I am.”
“To put it simply, my strength is having/showing compassion to others, my weakness is my lack of ability to have that same compassion for myself. Until I learn to love myself and trust myself and love LIFE, I’m not quite content with myself. Yet.” – Julia (YAA)
“For my strengths, I consider myself a very loyal person (I’m not one to turn others away when they need to vent or ask for advice) and creative. I use my creativity to benefit myself and others and often it pays off. It allows me to survey things in a different perspective that others cannot and exposes me to new, fun opportunities.
As for weaknesses, I think it would be opening myself too much and ending up hurt. Often I’ll establish relationships with people whom I care about but then we drift apart or they hurt me and I blame my openness for this. I think this is a blessing and a curse as I wouldn’t be able to have all my friends without my openness yet sometimes it costs my happiness.
As for how happy I am with myself, throughout Junior High I’ve tried to figure myself out. I’ve been happy, miserable and everything in between. I think I’ve finally accepted who I am so for the moment, I’ll say I am happy, but I will always want to improve upon myself.”
“A great strengths of mine is being able to process information quickly, clearly, and with an open mind. This definitely helps when school and extra-curricular events go by fast! Also, my ability to empathize with people and what they are going through emotionally and mentally bring me back down to earth when life becomes a matter of getting to point A to point B.
With that being said, a weakness of mine is not being to balance my own emotions and aspects such as my social and work life. I can lock myself in my room for days because I’m always thinking about what needs to be done, which stresses and tires me out on a constant basis. This further leads to beating myself up for little things I did or did not do.
To improve this, I need to just breathe and reassure myself that what I’m doing is good enough. It’s tough being my own worst critic, but when I stand back and look at what I have accomplished in life, it’s something to be proud of. And yes, I am happy with myself, but there’s always room for improvement!”
“My greatest weakness is the white knight syndrome – I feel naturally obligated to help any one of my close friends out of a situation, no matter how dangerous it can be. I am logical and intelligent enough to understand the consequences, yet I put caution into the wind and do it anyways. As a consequence, I’ve faced emotional pain and lost some friendships.
My greatest strengths are my ability to adapt to any situation with ease, my leadership skills as well as my fearlessness. I’ve applied these strengths in sports. For example, coaches often choose me to be the captain or co-captain like in volleyball.
I could have made wiser decisions in the past, but I am young. Live and learn. Sometimes, the heart trumps the brain, tossing rationality out of the picture. However, I haven’t really been focusing on the positives of helping others and that it’s not just a weakness, it’s also a strength. Overall, I am very happy with myself.”
– Peter, a.k.a. “Captain Serious”
“My greatest strength to focus on is probably my personality! People always tell me that I am friendly, easygoing, funny and caring and that I’m a nice person to be around and to be friends with. I think this is a strength because I take my personality wherever I go and with a likable personality, it is easy to get along with everyone and end up being happy and successful. I also think I’m light-hearted for the most part, I can take jokes and other things in a light manner. Another strength I would say would be that I can express my feelings and thoughts well through writing. Words come easy to me but I also choose my words wisely while talking to others or writing.
My weaknesses are that I trust too easily! Until very recently I thought it was a strength but as I talked to others and my trust was tested, I realized that it’s much easier for me to get hurt if I trust people too much and too quickly. Another weakness is the fact that I cannot say no, or if I do, I kill myself over it. I just find that if someone asks you for help or anything, no is a strong word, and the wrong word since they can confide and trust in you to help them. It is a weakness because I often over commit myself and end up being overwhelmed with everything else, leaving me no time to think and no time for myself and doing things for me!
I can work on these weaknesses by learning to take time in getting to know people and giving space and time in any relationship. I also learned that sometimes that mystery is necessary between 2 people in order to keep “the magic alive” so to speak. If you know everything about the other person. it’s easier to take those people for granted because they know you or should know you well enough to know how you feel. I also learned and am working on saying no to people who ask me for help too much of the time, or especially when I have a schedule or important things to do such as studying for an exam. Or else if I decide to help them, I limit my time and try to work everything out so I am not stressed by the end of the day!
I can proudly say, I am happy with myself! BUT there are still many changes I have to undergo and many experiences I have to go through in order to be the best person I can be!”
– Nabila
“My greatest strength is making others happy. Even when I’m at my worst, I have the capability to brighten up others day. My weakness is the opposite, taking of myself. I tend to hide my feelings and deal with stress by myself so that I can spend my time helping others and making others feel better.
I’m very happy with who I am though, even though I’m full of flaws, I’m glad that I can make my parents and my surrounding friends happy.”
– Anonymous
“Well I think one of my greatest weaknesses is how my lack of inspiration affects me. I tend to get it mixed with the negative things in my life and I end up shutting down often for a day or two at a time. This looks like lying in bed avoiding everything, including my phone and anyone trying to reach me. So I suppose that’s a few weaknesses all in one.
(For my strengths, I’m a fighter. I fight for what I want/need. I refuse to settle for less if I don’t have to. I mean unless that course of action is dangerous to me or someone else. I’m very articulate, when needed. Actually I’ve been told that on separate occasions from different people, that I’m “very articulate”. I’ve learned how to take a step back when I’ve done something wrong, and take responsibility, do some damage control if I can. And also, how and where to find inspiration when I’m feeling lost. This has been helpful lately because I’m actually starting to get everything back together after 2 years of utter chaos.
I can work on my weaknesses through life experience and time. I need to find something solid that I can hold on to constantly that will provide me with the inspiration/motivation that I need. I also need to re-learn how to function when I am not feeling up to anything and just push through.”
– Anonymous
“I am a Grade 11 student and for past the five years I have faced a series of challenges which have tested my emotional, physical and mental strength. There have been good days and there have been bad and sometimes terrible days at which I stop to question the purpose of my life. Every day is a struggle. From early morning trying to pull myself out of bed to restless nights where my thoughts swing wildly. Even through my greatest challenges, I’ve continued to find a reason to keep going even on my worse days. My greatest strength as an individual is my resiliency.
With the school year wrapping up my time as Grade 11 student is reaching its end. The final chapter of my high school career is starting in just a few months and I’m at a loss for words. Growing up I had always imagined and planned for my life to be, finish high school, get accepted into university, graduate from university, find a job and work for the rest of my life. This was the ideal plan and it perfect to me but then, high school happened.
Prior to entering into high school, I was student who excelled academically I would have considered myself as a competitive student among my peers. When I entered into high school, I was bottom of the chain. The student I was prior high school didn’t reflect who I really was. I was judging myself and comparing myself with others and this two digit percentage that determined my intelligence. I was and am constantly beating myself up for not achieving the grades I want and the goals I had set. My greatest weakness is comparing myself with who I was and with my peers.
I can improve my weaknesses by one understanding that grades don’t mean everything. Yes, they are important but only to a certain extent. I can continue to work hard to improve my marks and I can seek for help from additional resources however, I need to stop taking my marks and comparing them with my peers. I need to force myself to understand that everyone’s strengths and weaknesses are different. I may possess a skill that someone else may look at as their weakness. It comes down to the fact that we are not all the same. We all strive to fulfill different ambitions in our life.”
– Carman
“I think my greatest strength is that I pay a lot of attention to detail. I know that probably sounds weird as a strength but I’m very analytical so I can pick up a lot of things that I don’t think most people pay attention to. To tie in with that, I’m also a perfectionist so I think the work I produce or jobs I perform are generally of high quality, if that makes sense.
In contradiction though, I also think that my greatness weakness is my analytical mind and attention to detail. I notice minor changes in attitudes and I over-think everything, sometimes creating problems that shouldn’t have even existed in the first place. My mind is always constantly observing and inspecting everything around me that I always find myself feeling stressed. I’m working towards being more laid-back and less in my head but I don’t know if I’ve made much progress.”
– Pauline
“I think my greatest strength is my understanding. No matter who the person is and whatever may be going on between us I always try to see where they are coming from as well.
My greatest weakness… there’s a lot. I’ll choose my hypocrisy. It’s like if something happens to someone I almost never blame them for it. But if it happens to me, no matter what it is, I feel like I have done something to deserve it in some way.
Am I happy with who I am? That’s hard to answer. I know that I am a good person, I am pretty funny, smart, kind and overall someone with a lot of potential. BUT, as someone who lives with depression it’s hard for me to completely believe that. Because of this depression I see myself in a very distorted way. But I have an amazing care team at South Health who are helping me work on that.
Yes I have flaws, yes there are things about myself that are obnoxious and annoying, and yes I am sometimes very immature, but I am pretty happy with who I am. I have a lot of great friends in my life and I still try to see the positive in every situation no matter how depressed I am. So overall I’d say that I am happy with myself, but there are still some kinks that I need to work on.”
– Sara
“I think my greatest weakness is that I think about doing things more than I actually do them. Sometimes I’ll over analyze every outcome of the situation, other times I’ll just have really high expectations. Either way, there’s always some sort of fear holding me back- fear or failure, fear of rejection, fear of getting into trouble. I end up not actually doing anything and then regretting it later.
I think the way for me to deal with this weakness is to realize that the fear only lives in my mind, and stop myself when I catch myself overthinking an action instead of doing it. Then I would slowly get into the habit of just doing whatever it is.”
I think my greatest strength is that I’m always trying to learn. It keeps me humble and it keeps me curious.”
– Naoreen
Strengths and weaknesses are like a diamond.
That is to say, your strengths and weaknesses are both valuable. They are a part of who you are, and you should embrace that. In order to grow, you have to continually reflect on who you are. Ask yourself questions: What can you be proud of? What can you work on? Formulate a plan and work towards it one step at a time. Eventually you will become confident in your identity, flaws and all. Don’t worry if you don’t feel that way yet, because we’re all still struggling, learning and growing.