subject: The Self-improvement Myth: 9 Reasons We Dont Know How To Develop Our Strengths [print this page] What do you do when youre confronted with something youre not good at?
Some people get discouraged and quit. Others keep doggedly working to get better at it, and in the process become more well-rounded human beings.
Conventional wisdom says that the second response is the healthy one. But the empirical evidence suggests that its people who specialize in an area of aptitude who are successful and happy, not those who focus their energies on becoming well rounded.
As a psychologist, I was trained to assess and treat what was wrong in peoples lives, to help people accomplish this business of self-improvement. But something changed in me about thirty years ago. I grew very weary of working on what was wrong with people and became more interested in what was right with them (i.e., their strengths).
It was this change that ultimately led me to working with Lynda-Ross Vega to develop Your Talent Advantage (YTA), a sophisticated psychological assessment that accurately assesses a persons strengths and forms the basis of a roadmap for developing them in their lives.
Many times after I have given presentations about YTA, and even after I have just delivered a persons assessment results, I have been met with, Okay. Thats interesting, but so what? As in, Now that I know this about myself, of what practical use is it? I am convinced that this response is because the results are focused on their strengths, rather than on their weaknesses and deficiencies.
If the YTA assessment results were like school report cards and employee performance reviews that highlight areas in need of improvement, I suspect that the question so what? would never arise. The questions would be about what you could do to improve or where you could find classes for remediation. People would be jumping in, raring to get to work on improving themselves.
Perhaps this is because people dont think theres any work involved in making the most of their talents and abilities. After all, these are the things theyre already good at, right? So wheres the room to move?
But heres an analogy if you had a mining claim somewhere, with a few different veins of gold running through it, wouldnt you want to know which vein lay closest to the surface? Its not that digging up that gold wouldnt still be work. It would just be the kind of work most likely to yield results.
Still, so many people love working on what they dont do well that theyre baffled about how to take advantage of information about their natural skills and abilities. Why? Because:
1. We get so little feedback about or gifts, skills, and talents in life that we dont understand what it takes to further develop them. (Interested in this? Take a look at a skill or talent you have, then look at a leader who exemplifies that skill or talent. What would it take to close the gap between your level of mastery and theirs?)
2. Our gifts and talents are so chronically underdeveloped that we are unaware of what they are and cannot recognize their value or practical expression. (Do you know how to lean on your natural skills and abilities during a crisis? In leading a team? In everyday problem-solving? If youre like most people, the answer is no.)
3. There is an endless supply of what we dont do naturally well, but only a finite list of our gifts and talents. Somehow, we believe that if we focus on the positive, we will run out of areas to improve.
4. We see others doing things we struggle with and buy into the idea that we are somehow less than they are because we cant do everything.
5. We grossly undervalue the worth of our own innate abilities, falsely believing that if it is easy for us then it is easy for everyone. (Not true!)
6. We have bought into the belief that we must be well-rounded rather than specialists, despite all the empirical evidence demonstrating that those who specialize are more successful and happy.
7. We are conditioned to focus on bad news (newspapers, television and radio news, etc.) rather than good news.
8. We suffer from pleasure anxiety and distrust both positive feedback and feeling good about ourselves.
9. We somehow feel wrong focusing on our own positive qualities. As my mother used to say derisively, Boy, you sure are tooting your own horn!
Do you see yourself in any of these statements? (I know I do.) If so, its time to break out of the pack and do something extraordinary: discover the depth, unique qualities, and nuanced expression of skills and talents you are naturally gifted with.
