It’s very common for advice columns and blogs to offer you endless strategies geared towards helping you become a better, more competent person. Chief among these are blogs that deal with business or professional life, because of course, working as well as we can means learning new skills and managing our day as well as we can.
There’s nothing wrong with this. But sometimes, this advice can avoid the simple fact that we all have our strengths and weaknesses. For one person, heading to the gym to improve their body might mean overcoming an anxiety issue first and foremost, to the point where the advice given might be applicable, but not completely. Of course, bloggers can’t exactly offer a solution for every single person and every single situation, so general advice is typically given instead.
Yet knowing your weaknesses can help you know yourself more, and may even help you begin to accept those flaws. From there, you can begin to work on them. So, in this post, we’ll discuss a few issues that might be holding you back, and how you can see just how normal they are, as well as how to progress from there:
Curating Empathy Is Important
It’s good to curate empathy and to have your priorities properly set before you work on yourself and become better, and stronger. In fact, while encountering suffering and struggle is not something that you should ever wish on anyone, most of us know that we are stronger for our trials and tribulations, even if we don’t have to be grateful for them.
There’s a reason why, in fiction, the hero of a tale is usually humbled to the point where they have to be worthy of taking up a great mantle. To use a popularized idea from comic book fiction (and some of the best selling Marvel films), the character of Thor is only able to wield his hammer when he’s worthy of it. If he’s not, he can’t pick it up.
This might sound irrelevant, but that’s not so. The hero’s journey, one of the most powerful formats for telling stories in books, films and legend, routinely emphasizes that the hero must be out of their comfort zone before they are able to move forward, precisely because of the empathy they are afforded. While we might not have such grand fictional questlines in our own lives, living as well as we can and letting experience soften us can be tremendously helpful in improving as a person.
It’s interesting, then, how we’re rarely pushed forward without being vulnerable first. So, when climbing that mountain, know that even the temporary falls have a purpose.
Facing Your Challenges Head-On Can Help You Become Stronger
All of us have difficulties in our lives that we don’t wish to address or we’re postponing caring about. For instance, one person might find it tremendously difficult to head to the gym, even though they’ve wanted to for some time. This is an experience that many people are going through right now as Covid-19 is starting to abate in some countries and facilities are opening up.
Facing your challenges head-on means avoiding putting the responsibilities we may know we have on the back burner. Trying, slowly and incrementally, is the best way to overcome weakness. It might just be that you practice driving to the gym in the morning to feel comfortable in the parking lot. Perhaps the next week, you can ask for a quick tour so you feel comfortable in the layout. Then, perhaps you can practice some stretches at home. Before you know it, you might be encountering a free taster session with a personal trainer. Then, you might ask someone you know to come with you, so that you can both benefit.
That’s a mountain that you’ve overcome, and you did so by being diligent and taking those steps. That’s always something to celebrate.
Motivation & Morale Can Mean Everything
You don’t have to feel like an ultra-warrior willing to run ultra-marathons each and every day to be active and engaged in life. Even the most active people in the world feel tired and fatigued from time to time, too.
The trick is that you don’t have to feel totally motivated about everything in life, but having the morale necessary to commit to your responsibilities, and the discipline you have built over time to help you in that way, can work absolute wonders going forward. This might involve, for instance, using an energy boost product to help you get started before your yoga session. It may mean writing down, at length, exactly why you hope to partake in this new practice.
Over time, you’ll no doubt see yourself improving and realize just how much of a forward ascent you have made. That can be tremendously appealing to those who otherwise felt themselves unable to make that starting progress. Sometimes, finding motivation and morale means using the gentle force of momentum to get going. This is true no matter if you hope to exercise more, or face your fears of public speaking by attending a training seminar. This advice can apply to any skillset you hope to improve.
Getting Out Of Your Own Way Is Important
It’s good to get out of your own way from time to time, no matter what you hope to achieve.
This might involve asking for help. Sometimes, we can be too proud or even embarrassed to ask for that. But should you? Absolutely not. What’s the alternative, after all? That’ you’re going to be able to perfectly overcome every single challenge that comes your way without having to learn or lean on anyone? No one can do that.
So, sometimes, overcoming this feeling of worry simply means getting out of your own way. Do something that makes you feel like you’re taking a risk, even if that’s just telling your Doctor that you feel very stressed at work and you’re not sure how to go about soothing it. For some people, that can mean a revolution in terms of how they relate to their self-care.
With this advice, we hope you can understand that having a weakness doesn’t mean you’ve a lack of strength, but rather, it can make the strength you do gather all the more robust.
Do you find that knowing your weakness has helped improve yourself? Let me know in the comments below!
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