Content

• Steps
• Part 1 of 6: Realizing Your Opportunities
• Part 2 of 6: Exercise to Self-Assess Your Strength
• Part 3 of 6: Making a list of your actions
• Part 4 of 6: List Your Desires
• Part 5 of 6: Assessing Your Strengths and Weaknesses
• Part 6 of 6: Using Skills in Interviews
• Tips
• Warnings

Understanding your strengths and weaknesses will help you improve your personal life and develop professional communication skills. Self-knowledge is a great tool that many people neglect because of difficulties or discomfort. What you think is your strength may not be one in the eyes of other people, which makes it difficult to categorize some of a person's traits. While you will mostly have to rely on personal experience, there are exercises to help you identify your professional and personal strengths and weaknesses. Below are also tips for applying these techniques in real life situations to get the most benefit, such as in a job interview.

Steps

Part 1 of 6: Realizing Your Opportunities

1. 1 Appreciate your efforts. The very willingness to understand where you are strong, and what should be given more attention, makes you a strong person. For this activity, you will need inner endurance. Remember to cheer yourself up and remember what a wonderful person you are.
2. 2 Write down everything you do. To identify your strengths and weaknesses, think about activities that you often participate in or enjoy the most. During the week, write down all the activities you do during each day, rating them from 1 to 5 on a scale of pleasure.
   • Research has shown that journaling leads to increased self-awareness and reveals your values ​​and desires to you. These can be both the most memorable moments of the past day, and a detailed description of your innermost desires and ideas. The better you know yourself, the easier it will be for you to identify your strengths.
3. 3 Move on to reassess your values. Sometimes it is quite difficult to recognize your strengths and weaknesses without first defining your basic life values. Values ​​refer to the beliefs that shape your thoughts about yourself, other people, and the world around you. They form the basis of your approach to life. Take some time to reassess your values ​​so that you have a better understanding of which aspects of your life are good and which are disadvantages, regardless of the opinions of others.
   • Think about the people you respect. What attracts you to them? What traits of their character do you value? Do you own them yourself?
   • Imagine that you have the opportunity to change one thing in your society. What will you change and why? What does this say about your values?
   • Think about the last time you felt content or happy. When it was? What happened? Who was next to you then? Why did you feel this way?
   • Imagine that your house is on fire (but all pets and people are already safe) and you can only save 3 items. What will you save and why?
4. 4 Examine your answers for the presence of a particular pattern. After reassessing your values, look for similarities in your answers. For example, you admire Bill Gates and Richard Branson for their entrepreneurial spirit and creativity. This suggests that you value ambition, competitiveness, and ingenuity. Perhaps you want to do something about poverty in your community so that everyone has a home over their heads and food on the table. This suggests that you value people, social activities and work for the good of humanity. You may have several core values.
   • If you find it difficult to find the right words, search the list of values ​​on the Internet.
5. 5 Determine if your life is against your beliefs. Sometimes people discover their flaws when, for some reason, their lives do not align with their core values. Living in harmony with your values ​​will make you a congruent personality, which in turn will increase your feelings of satisfaction and success.
   • For example, you value the ambition and spirit of competition, but are stuck in a hopeless monotonous job with no opportunity to prove yourself. You may consider this to be your disadvantage, because such a life does not correspond to your idea of ​​what is really important.
   • Or maybe you are a young mother who values ​​learning and wants to return to teaching. Because one value (of attaining education) contradicts another (family life), you may feel that being a “good mother” is a disadvantage. In this case, you need to learn how to balance your values. Wanting to go back to work doesn't mean you don't want to spend time with your child.
6. 6 Consider the situational meanings of values. Determine what the advantages and disadvantages are characteristic of social conventions or customs in a given situation. Social conventions are a set of rules established in a particular geographic area or ethnic group that regulates interpersonal interactions in the hope of maintaining social boundaries.Having an understanding of the accepted foundations will help you determine what counts as an advantage or disadvantage in a particular geographic area.
   • For example, if you live in a rural area where all people make a living with their own hands, then most likely in this society the qualities related to physical labor and continuous work throughout the day are valued. If you live in a city, then these qualities may not be fundamental, except, of course, when you are doing manual work.
   • Determine if the environment is conducive to developing your strengths and personality. If not, consider whether you can change the situation or change the environment to one in which your merits will be more appreciated.

Part 2 of 6: Exercise to Self-Assess Your Strength

1. 1 Collect respondents. Do the Self-Assessment Your Strength exercise to figure out your strengths and weaknesses. To determine your strengths, you need to know what other people think of you. First, think about the people in every aspect of your life. Let it be colleagues from past and present jobs, former professors and teachers, as well as friends and family members.
   • Collecting responses from different people will help you more fully assess your character in different situations.
2. 2 Collecting opinions. Once you've identified your candidates, send them an email asking them to list your strengths. Let them point out specific situations where you have applied these virtues. Do not forget to clarify that these can be both personal skills and character traits. We'll need both types of answers.
   • The reason for using e-mail is that you do not have to squeeze the answer out of the person, but giving them time to think, thereby, you will receive a more sincere response. It also allows you to use the written responses for further analysis.
3. 3 Pay attention to general points. Having received all the answers, you need to find similar points in them. Read each answer carefully and think about its meaning. Try to isolate all the traits that each person mentions, and examine the examples given for other traits. After interpreting all of the answers, compare them with each other and try to find traits that several people mention.
   • For convenience, draw a table with a column with the name of the trait, one column for each answer and a column with your interpretation.
   • For example, a large number of people claim that you work great under pressure, do well in a crisis, and organize people in stressful situations. This means that you are able to remain calm under pressure, that you are a determined and natural leader. You are also a compassionate person and the life of the party.
4. 4 Take a self-portrait. After collecting the results, analyze the resulting list of your own merits. Be sure to include all the miscellaneous details that people thought were important in describing your personality and any character traits found in the analysis.
   • As a result, you will not get a complete psychological profile, but a deep characterization of your best qualities. It will serve as a reminder of your inherent qualities in an optimal setting and a guide for future use.

Part 3 of 6: Making a list of your actions

1. 1 Record your actions. Consider your reaction to certain events that require active and mental action, as well as intuition. Before taking action, try to draw a parallel between your spontaneous reactions and your past experiences. Buy or get a diary and write down your thoughts on the matter.
   • The fact is that spontaneous reactions can tell a lot about your actions in ordinary and critical situations.Write them down to make it easier for you to understand your actions and capabilities.
2. 2 Think about difficult situations that you have experienced. It could be a car accident or a child suddenly jumping out onto the road in front of your car and hard braking. How did you react when faced with a spontaneous situation? Have you silenced and retreated or challenged circumstances by doing your best to deal with them?
   • If you took control of a situation and acted as a leader, know that the ability to cope with such situations is in your blood. If you couldn't stop crying, felt helpless, or reproached other people, then maintaining your composure in a difficult situation is not your forte.
   • Make sure to view the problem from a different angle. For example, feeling helpless after a car accident is a perfectly normal reaction to a situation. And by asking for help, you will thereby show your strength (teamwork). You don't have to do everything alone to be considered strong.
3. 3 Think about a less stressful situation. Think about the moments when you made a difficult decision, but not in a matter of life and death. For example, what is your reaction to being in a room full of people? Do you want to meet everyone you meet, or do you prefer to find a quiet corner away from the noise and chat with only one person?
   • The person who is able to find common language with other people is strong socially, while the quieter person is strong in individual communication. A person can benefit from both of these qualities.
4. 4 Think back to a time when you faced a difficult task face to face. Think about a situation where you were confronted with a fact and needed to react quickly. How quickly were you able to adapt to the new situation? Are you quick-witted and able to give an instant response to a caustic joke from a colleague? Or are you used to thinking everything over and only then reacting in such situations?
   • Remember that any strength you develop can have its drawbacks. If you spend most of your life alone reading a book, it will be difficult for you to have casual conversation with other people, but it will not be difficult for you to delve into the essence of the book or discuss important topics with others. Growing up as the oldest child in a family, you must have compassion, patience, and the ability to reduce the intensity of passions.
   • The main thing is to remember that the world needs different people with different qualities and interests. You may not be the best at everything, but only at what you think matters.
   • A person who brilliantly parries remarks, or someone who quickly solves a problem, has a quick wit, but also superficiality. A person who takes time to think has an advantage in planning, and a disadvantage in limited intelligence.

Part 4 of 6: List Your Desires

1. 1 Analyze your desires. Your desires and aspirations say a lot about you, even if you have tried to deny them for a long time. Determine for yourself why you want to achieve these goals and what is necessary to achieve them. They are most likely your hobbies and dreams, which tend to be related to your strengths. A lot of people strive to build a career because their family expects it. Such people become doctors or lawyers, even though they themselves would prefer to do ballet or mountain climbing. Make a list of your desires and aspirations in life.
   • Ask yourself: "What do I want from life?" Whether you're trying to get your first job in your life or just retired, you should always have goals and aspirations in life. Decide what guides you and makes you happy.
2. 2 Identify your addictions. Decide what activities give you the most enjoyment in life.Answer the question: "What types of activities attract me and give me joy?" Some people find it very satisfying to sit around a campfire next to their Labrador. Others prefer rock climbing or road travel.
   • List the activities or things that make you happy and enjoyable. They will be your hobbies, and will be of the greatest importance to you.
3. 3 Find out what motivates you. Along with your desires, you need to understand what motivates you in life. Ask yourself, "When do I feel energized and stimulated?" Consider those moments when you felt like you were ready to move mountains, or were inspired to develop yourself. The things that inspire and motivate us are usually our strengths.
   • Please note that many people begin to have desires at an early age, which indicates a sincere self-knowledge that many lose when they begin to be affected by pressure from family, peers, society, finances, while the original desires are pushed far back into side.

Part 5 of 6: Assessing Your Strengths and Weaknesses

1. 1 Review your weaknesses. Weakness is not a very appropriate term when it comes to self-development. In fact, people are not so weak as we sometimes think. Regardless, most people would like to improve some aspects of their lives, their skills, and more. Since they do not believe they are strong in something, they use the opposite meaning of the word to describe an area that needs to be worked on in order to feel confident. Instead of focusing on “weakness,” which has a negative connotation, think of it as an opportunity for growth and improvement. This will help you to face the future with courage and get better if possible.
   • Weakness should be considered a part of yourself that you are able to improve if it is connected with your desires, or that has absolutely no meaning for your hopes and goals in life. Acceptance of one of these explanations is perfectly acceptable. Weaknesses are not permanent aspects of our life, they are impermanent and only dictate our actions in attempts to achieve perfection.
2. 2 Identify areas for improvement. Directions for development can be anything from professional or social skills to lack of self-control in nutrition. This also includes the inability to catch a baseball or slowness in solving math problems. Often, directions for development are included in the concept of "life lessons" and advice not to repeat your own mistakes. In other cases, it means making an effort to overcome the lack of skill.
   • However, the obvious "weakness" can be a sign that this or that activity is simply not for you, and you should stop deceiving yourself. If all people were good or found pleasure in the same activities, then the world would most likely be a very boring place.
3. 3 Focus on your strengths. Some may think that focusing on personal weaknesses is a waste of time or the wrong way to approach the problem altogether. Instead, focus on your strengths and try to build on them whenever possible. This approach can be more effective than identifying your own weaknesses. Since weaknesses usually mean a lack of interest or desire for improvement, you may be able to achieve more by focusing all your attention on your strengths and desires. Don't be shy when listing your strengths. You must have a lot of merits, even if you yourself think otherwise. After that, focus on the aspects that you think have room for growth.
   • For example, if you want to become more assertive, start by developing the confidence skills you already have. It may be hard for you to say no, but you are able to formulate your position without offending the feelings of the addressee and at the same time convey your point of view.
   • Think about the aspects of your personality that you are happy with. Kindness, generosity, openness, and consideration are extremely important virtues that also have a place in your overall skill set that you might not have considered. Remember them and be proud of them.
   • Advantages are also sometimes referred to as talents, innate abilities and desires that complement your personality and future plans. In other words, these are things about which you can say: "Nothing complicated, I've always been good at ...".
4. 4 Write down your strengths and weaknesses. After analyzing your actions and desires, it's time to start listing your strengths and weaknesses. Using the answers you received from other people and what you have learned about yourself from the other exercises, write down aspects of your work and personal life that you consider to be your strengths or weaknesses. Let this be your current vision of your strengths and weaknesses, based on your present life, both personally and professionally, without regard to the past and desires.
   • And remember that no one will rate this "test" or you based on your answers, so be honest. For convenience, draw two columns, with “Strengths” above one and “Weaknesses” above the other. Then start filling them out.
5. 5 Compare the lists with each other. Do they match, or did you find some surprises? Maybe you thought you were strong in one area, but on your action list, things don't seem right at all? This type of discrepancy occurs when a difficult situation reveals your real character, which is different from your idea of ​​it.
   • What about the inconsistencies between your desires and your perception of your strengths? These inconsistencies happen when your actions are dictated by someone's expectations or your own idea of ​​the right thing to do, while your desires and actual reactions differ significantly from this.
6. 6 Analyze any surprises and inconsistencies. Take a look at the lists you've created. Look for unexpected results and mismatches. Reflect on why some of the advantages or disadvantages you find do not match your opinion. Perhaps you think you are happy about certain things, or certain things motivate you, but in reality it’s not at all like that? The resulting lists will help you figure it out.
   • Focus your attention on the inconsistencies you find and try to identify situations that relate to them. Maybe you wrote that you are striving to become a singer, but in the list of supposed advantages, you indicated that the exact sciences or medicine are easy for you? While the singing doctor's idea is quite unique, the two professions are fundamentally different from each other. Find out which area truly motivates you in the long run.
7. 7 Get the opinion of friends or family. Let a close friend or family member evaluate you constructively. Despite the fact that introspection provides enough answers, getting an outside opinion will help you both to consolidate the results of your observations, and to smash some illusions to dust. Receiving constructive criticism from others is an essential part of life in society. It is imperative that you do not dismiss their opinions or take self-help advice to heart. The ability to isolate valuable points for everyday life from constructive criticism can be a virtue in itself.
   • If you doubt a family member will be honest with you, find someone who will tell you the truth, not sweet lies about your weaknesses. Find a neutral, uninterested person, preferably a colleague or mentor, to get honest information about yourself.
   • Ask for comments on your lists. Have a disinterested person check and comment on your listings. Helpful comments and questions include: "Why do you think you are not acting fast enough in emergencies?" An independent person may recall a moment when you were the hero of the day in an emergency that you may have forgotten about.
8. 8 Get professional help. If you still have difficulty or trust an outside source more, seek professional help to identify your strengths and weaknesses. There are entire companies that are engaged in the preparation of psychological portraits and have representatives in recruiting agencies. For a fee, you can get tested and get a psychological overview of your personality and professional profile.
   • While these tests will not give you a complete picture of your personality, they are nevertheless a great starting point for thinking about your strengths and weaknesses.
   • This will help you learn what they think are your strengths and weaknesses. A good test should be long in order to be able to reveal repetitive aspects of your personality. After conducting such a test, you should personally talk to a psychologist to identify strengths and weaknesses.
   • There are online tests that you can take to assess your strengths and weaknesses. Look for tests on reputable sites, as long as they are written by professional psychologists or other qualified professionals. If you need to pay to take the test, first check the information about the company providing the test so as not to throw money down the drain.
9. 9 Analyze the results. After identifying your strengths and weaknesses, reflect and define your attitude towards the results obtained. Decide if you want to change your weaknesses and determine what you need to storm and turn your weakness into strength.
   • Sign up for a class or find an activity that will relate to your weakness. For example, if in a spontaneous situation you fall into a complete stupor, try to get into such situations as often as possible. You can join the theater community, join a sports team, or sing at the karaoke bar.
   • Consider getting therapy or talk to someone about your fears and concerns. If practicing and joining a theater group isn't helping, and your fears or concerns are deeply rooted in your ability to move forward, consider seeking counseling from a therapist.
10. 10 Fight perfectionism. Try not to dwell on your weaknesses. This behavior can soon develop into a non-constructive pattern of perfectionism that will keep you from being successful. Start with what you do well in a given skill set, and then gradually start developing those skills.
    • Let's say you want to develop your communication skills. After some self-reflection, you come to the conclusion that you are a reasonably good listener. But when it's your turn to speak, you freeze. If you want to be more talkative, you want to try inserting a sentence or two into the conversation at short intervals.
    • The perfectionist will find that without communication skills, you shouldn't even try to develop them somehow if you make mistakes. You must recognize that mistakes are an integral part of learning and development, and as you cultivate, you can afford to make them.
11. 11 Don't give up on important moments in your life. Each person stands out for something.There are times when you are doing something that you have never done before, something clicks inside you, and you realize that this is given to you.
    • This can be sports, art, creative pursuits, talking with animals, replacing an absent employee and doing his job, and so on. Not everyone will feel this wonderful moment, but if this happens to you, work on it to improve your life and reach your true potential.

Part 6 of 6: Using Skills in Interviews

1. 1 Analyze the relevance of your strengths and weaknesses. During the interview, you can use all the knowledge gained about yourself. Think about how your strengths and weaknesses are relevant to the job you are looking for. As a preparation for the interview, determine what tasks you will face in this job and recall all the times in your life when you had to perform similar tasks. What are your strengths or weaknesses at the same time?
   • For example, if you are applying for a programmer position, share your strengths in computing or solving complex problems. At the same time, it will not be entirely appropriate to start a conversation about your addiction to ping-pong, unless the employer himself shows an interest in this topic.
2. 2 Show honesty and confidence. When asked about these qualities in a job interview, be honest when describing your strengths. When interviewers ask about your strengths and weaknesses, they will be interested not only in your skills, but also in your ability to present yourself correctly. Social skills and self-presentation are fast becoming one of the most important skills in the labor market. The interviewer checks how well the interviewee is able to describe his strengths and weaknesses and how comfortable he feels at the same time.
3. 3 Practice answering questions before your interview. In order to gain experience, conduct a test interview with someone you know. Ask a friend to ask you questions and try to describe yourself to him. Repeat this as many times as necessary and with as many people as possible until you feel comfortable describing your strengths and weaknesses. At first, you will feel like you are reading from a piece of paper, but over time you will begin to feel more and more at ease.
   • Before going through the interview, remember as many specific cases as possible in which your merits were fully manifested. Not only do the interviewers want to hear what your strengths are, but they will probably also ask you for specific situations in which your personal merit played a key role in solving a problem or challenge. Try to remember such cases, or better write down everything that comes to mind in order to come to the interview as prepared as possible.
   • For example, instead of saying, “Conscientiousness is my virtue,” it’s better to give a concrete example: “In my previous job, I was responsible for double-checking the accuracy of the monthly budget. Several times I noticed mistakes that could bring significant losses to our company. This attention to detail will prove useful in this position at your company. ”
4. 4 Don't try to twist the truth. Potential employers are not stupid and will definitely reveal your trick. They sometimes interview hundreds of candidates, and their first thought is to use their strengths and present them as weaknesses. What you think is a strength may not look like that in the eyes of an employer, as they are often looking for employees who value compliance and teamwork. This reaction will look like you lack self-awareness. The most common evasions include:
   • "I am a perfectionist and will not tolerate mistakes."Perfectionism is unlikely to seem to the employer an acceptable dignity, because this implies excessive demands on yourself and others, as well as problems with postponing work until another day.
   • "I am stubborn and will not let go of mine." This may indicate that you are extremely malleable and do not adapt well to change.
   • "I have to fight to maintain a good work-life balance because I work so hard." From this we can conclude that you are not able to take care of yourself and you can simply burn out at work or become an unpleasant person for colleagues.
5. 5 List your shortcomings honestly. When the interviewer asks about your flaws, be honest. There would be no point in asking a question if your answer turns out to be a succinct description of your own coolness. This is not what he wants to know. The interviewers want to participate in a real discussion about the areas you are willing to improve and get a general idea of ​​your personality. Real weaknesses can include:
   • Excessive criticality
   • Suspiciousness (in relation to bosses, colleagues)
   • Excessive exactingness
   • Slowness
   • Excessive talkativeness
   • Excessive sensitivity
   • Lack of confidence
   • Lack of tact
6. 6 Admit the harmfulness of your shortcomings. They can affect your work. Talking about how your weaknesses have influenced or can potentially affect your work can make an impression. This will demonstrate your discernment and honesty, however, you should still be tactful in what you say.
   • For example, you can tell them the following: “I am slow at the moment. I understand that this affects the amount of work that I can do, and also potentially affects the amount of work that my colleagues can do. In college, I was able to sort it out because I knew the system, found a way to deal with it, and did everything on time. I understand that in the professional world this will not work, as it is the wrong approach to work, achieving my goals and fulfilling the assigned tasks. "
7. 7 Show the interviewer how you are trying to overcome your weaknesses. Again, the practical answer in this case is better than the theoretical one, because the theoretical answer may seem like an unrealistic and banal self-persuasion.
   • For example, you might say to the interviewer, “I am taking serious steps to curb my slowness. I set my own deadlines and use my own incentive methods to get them done. These methods have proven to be extremely effective in solving my problem. "
8. 8 Speak confidently about your strengths. Your tone should be confident, but not arrogant. When listing your accomplishments and skills, you should be confident but humble. Of course, try to choose the ones that may prove useful to the entrepreneur or company you are applying for. The real positives can be broken down into three main categories:
   • Knowledge-based qualities: computer skills, language skills, technical know-how, and so on.
   • Transferable qualities: communication and people management skills, problem solving, etc.
   • Personal qualities: sociability, confidence, punctuality, etc.
9. 9 Give examples when talking about your strengths. It is one thing to communicate that you have amazing communication skills, but it is quite another to show them. Illustrate your strengths with real-life, supporting examples from your personal life or work life. For instance:
   • "I am very sociable person. I choose my words carefully, avoid using ambiguous words when communicating. I am not afraid to ask additional questions when communicating with people of a higher position, if something is not clear to me. I try to imagine how different people might interpret my questions or statements. "
   • You can also showcase your strengths and skills by sharing past achievements and successes after your efforts.
   • If you have achieved any award or recognition, you can share it.

Tips

• Be careful when identifying desires not to include "false desires" on the list. They are desires fueled by the mistaken belief that you are destined to work for the Foreign Office because you then have to live in Paris, London and Rio, or that you want to be a movie star in order to attend glamorous parties and find a wealthy spouse. These are not desires, since they lack the feeling that your actions fill your life with meaning, they are just fantasies. You have to understand the difference, or else you might be making the gross mistake of building a career around fantasy instead of using your innate strength and sense of purpose.
• Fixing weaknesses takes time, so take a break if you are unable to immediately come to a solution. Also, don't waste your time trying to turn your weak side into a strong side. First, look for a workaround by developing your skills that you can change. Then come up with ways to further develop your abilities, which will become your hallmark, because they are given to you by nature.

Warnings

• During an interview, never brag about your strengths or whine about your weaknesses. Be straightforward and offer a way to overcome your shortcomings. When it comes to strengths, they need to be real and modestly presented.
• Try not to fall into the trap of thinking that you are doomed if you have weaknesses in addition to your strengths. Nobody is perfect and every person has something to be ashamed of. Imagine yourself in the role of an interviewer and think about how you would react to a person who would not stop bragging that he has no flaws.