4 keys to knowing your strengths and weaknesses

1. What is your personality? The purpose of any personality test is not to label you or keep you from trying new and different opportunities. Instead the test shows you the preferences you have for taking in information and making decisions. 2. Do the people close to you agree with your self-assessment? Sometimes the people close to us know us better than we know ourselves. 3. List your favorite childhood activities. Then, answer WHAT you liked or disliked about these activities. This is one of the most important parts of discovering your strengths and weaknesses. For example, maybe what you really liked about being on the debate team in high school was building the argument. Meanwhile your best friend loved the spotlight and always wanted to speak for the team. You could both choose careers in law, but have very different jobs in that field. Take action! Draw a basic timeline on paper. Divide it into the 3 major areas of your life: childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. For each phase, write down the activities you participated in, classes included. Break the activities into parts. Then label with these 3 words: fun, good at, and difficult. Circle the ones you labeled as “good at” or “fun.” These will be part of your strengths. 4. Summarize feedback into 3 and 3: three strengths and three weaknesses. The list doesn’t define you as a human being. Keeping it short, sweet, and to the point will help you as you move to the next stages. For help with this last point, see our next article, “3 is the magic number.”