When we start off in business, we often do so because we have a great strength. Whether, you’re a terrific salesperson or an intrepid designer, your strength is the vehicle to make you money. Unfortunately, it only takes about a week into your business when you realize what you do poorly. This can be customer relations, accounting, or…well, practically anything and everything that can go wrong when it comes to running a bootstrapped business. So what do you do? You only have so much time and effort, so do you build on strengths or fix weaknesses?
A little perspective: Almost everybody will always focus on their weaknesses instead of their strengths. This is true on a large scale too. There are 40,000 clinical studies on depression, but less than 400 on joy. Think back to being a kid—did your parents give you as much praise for your A+ in school as they did scolding for your C-? Probably not. Overall, weaknesses are seen not as areas we are lacking, but as Achilles Heels that are bound to destroy us and our business in the future.
But this isn’t the case. In fact, our weaknesses are areas where we need to work with over time. Just because we don’t do something well at this very moment, doesn’t mean we can’t become very skilled at it in the future. Instead of looking at these spots as weaknesses, plan for more time or do a little more reading in these areas, but most importantly accept that you are going to need do some extra work as a matter of course. Many weak areas can also be aided by special learning software and assistance from others in order to bolster your business until you can get up to the appropriate standards. But remember—a weakness worked at doesn’t become a strength.
Moreover, your weaknesses don’t generate income, your strengths do. So accept your weaknesses—outsource the work, find tools to help you, or spend a little more time on these areas—but build on your strengths because they are what will make or break your business in the long run. As your business becomes more successful because of these strengths, you’ll be able to hand off more of your weaknesses to other people. Thus, the damages your weaknesses do may only be short term, but the benefits of your strengths will define your future success.
This is somewhat the opposite of what school teaches. I’ve always wondered though, how do you really find a strength both in yourself and in another person (say that you’ve hired).
Nice post.Everyone has different kinds of weaknesses.Our weaknesses are areas where we need to work with over time.So this article will help you in this.
I have always used the Kolbe tool. http:www.kolbe.com. It has help to show me that when I am free to be myself this is how I will naturally go about doing things. It is a great way to understand where your strengths may lie.
[...] knowing why you are having trouble doing something and why it is easy to other things. Courtesy of BootStrapping Blog and Derek [...]