Dream Infatuation – Knowing When to Let Go
Discovering your strengths might sound pretty straight forward. Try a whole bunch of things, take some assessment tests and talk to people and voila, you’ve got it all figured out!
I wish!
While the relation may be unclear at first, dreams and strengths are intimately connected. If you’ve ever become attached to a particular dream, you may know what I’m talking about.
In junior high school, I started playing tennis. I loved the game and my parents allowed me to take lessons during the summer and into the school year. During the summers I made it a habit to wake up early every morning to go practice serving at the public tennis courts behind my house. I practiced every day for hours, sometimes going from 6 in the morning to noon.
Even with all the practice, I rarely won in competitions. When the pressure was on, I’d mis hit or make an unforced error. My game lacked consistency among other things. I spent hours at the courts but made only marginal improvements.
I tried out for my high school team twice, but failed both times. Though it was hard to admit, I eventually decided that being a tennis star was probably not for me.
Play to Your Strengths, Hard Work Alone is Not Enough
The reason why many people have unrealistic dreams is because our culture is one that promotes the power of dogged perseverance in overcoming all odds. We are raised to believe in the fairy tale that says if you work hard and don’t give up, eventually you will succeed.
Personally, I think the message of “Perseverance overcomes all” is misleading; and, in general, it’s not a smart way of approaching life. Doing well and achieving your dreams is usually about beating out the competition. If you don’t play to your unique strengths, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage.
Even if I practiced tennis day and night for years, I may have only made marginal improvements. I knew kids who had terrible form and little practice, but they had this innate “sense” about the game. I usually lost to those types of kids.
Although it was painful to admit the reality of my own shortcomings, the process has been extremely freeing. Trying to do something that you have no talent in is like trying to fit into somebody else’s clothes; while you might be able to get them on, they will probably feel, at best, awkward.
Distinguishing True from Mediocre Strengths
Strengths and weaknesses are not binary categories. There is a vast spectrum of talents that fall somewhere between being a strength and a weakness. Poorly identifying true strengths from mediocre ones is often the most challenging of all tasks on one’s journey towards self-discovery.
Not everyone has to deal with task of weeding out the so-so strengths from the true ones. There are the lucky few who just seem to know, without a doubt, what they are good at and what they are not.
I’ve met people in my life who were stellar at one thing and one thing only. For example, I once met a writer who confessed of panic attacks whenever he was asked to do long division in grade school; I have also met engineers who have trouble putting together a grammatically correct paragraph in their native language. While being so one sided may be considered a disadvantage in some respects, in many ways it’s a boon because you never have to think twice about what to do.
Unfortunately for most people deciding which strengths to hone is not as simple; it’s common for people to have a number of different things they can do reasonably well. The challenge becomes how to separate your true strengths from mediocre ones.
True strengths have two primary characteristics, they are:
1. Instinctive
2. Empowering
When you are utilizing true strengths, the act is natural and almost effortless. For example people who are naturally analytical can take information, digest it and find all the relevant relationships with ease. The analytical person naturally breaks information down into relationships and sees the meaning behind the numbers without having to think extensively.
In addition to being instinctive, when used, true strengths leave you feeling empowered. For example, being a natural communicator, speaking energizes and leaves me feeling stronger than when I am silent; this is why it is often hard to get me to shut up. 
When I am not speaking, I often lose concentration.
Strengths need to be tested and challenged in order to differentiate the true from the mediocre. True strengths, when challenged, often have limitless growth potential; they are the best tools in your toolkit, ones that only get sharper and stronger with practice.
Rather than identify the spectrum of strengths and weaknesses, I believe it is more productive to focus only on identifying true strengths and poring most of your energy into developing them. Once you are focused on developing your true strengths, everything else will fall into place.
Stay Tuned for How to Identify Your Personal Strengths Part III - The Value of Assessment Tests
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