A person’s abilities include both their strengths and their limitations. Examining both of these will help to establish the kind of clear vision that will help you maximize your potential.
Lets look at strengths first. When you think about your preference your particular strengths will come to mind, because people tend to enjoy the things they can do well best. Sometimes a strength seems natural because it is something you learned to do without ever having to work too hard. Some strengths you struggled to develop and still work hard to maintain. How do you determine what your strengths are is difficult for some but the following questions may help:
- What have you always been able to do well?
- What have others often praised you about?
- What do you like most about yourself, and why?
- What is your learning-style profile?
- What are you accomplishments at home? At school? At work?
Knowing ones abilities, just as knowing ones preferences, is very helpful in finding a job that will make the most of them and one that you will enjoy.
Next thing to look at is ones limitations because no one is perfect and no one is good at everything. Even though everyone has limitations it doesn’t make them any easier to deal with the frustration, stress and anger they cause. The two most common ways of dealing with limitations are ignoring them or dwelling on them. Both of these are natural, but neither is wise. The third and best way is to face them and to work to improve them while keeping the strongest focus on your abilities.
By ignoring ones limitations a person can cause themselves to be unable to accomplish their goals. Dwelling on them can make a person forget that they have any strengths at all. Facing limitations and working to improve them is the best response. By having a healthy understanding of ones limitations can help you avoid troublesome situations.