How to indicate strengths and weaknesses in the questionnaire. Why is it important to know your strengths? What about weak points

“I moved on with my life and made as many Strong Choices as I could. But I was tormented by an inner conviction that I could do much more. After all, I am sure that you very often feel a potential in yourself that simply does not have the opportunity to manifest itself in your current reality. And therefore, a person endowed with many talents may seem like Mediocrity, because. he simply does not have the ability or understanding of how to realize his potential! Most likely, everything would have remained at the level of inner feelings and regrets if, while studying at the Academy of Imperial Feng Shui, I had not come close to understanding the “Core of Personality”. Core Personality – it is a set of fundamental programs of a person's personality that determine his motivation, values, abilities and the way to achieve goals. It was a discovery for me that the Core of my Personality is the Yin Fire Ding. The image of this fire is a candle flame or fire from embers. It is not as strong as Bean's Yang Fire and is not capable of illuminating everything and everyone, but it provides sustained warmth and light to those around it without burning or scorching. Each Personality Core has its own Strengths and Weaknesses. I began to study them, go deeper and experiment with them in my work. And as it turned out, my gut feeling was correct. My work as a foreign trade manager simply did not give me the opportunity to fully manifest all my strengths ...

From my memories

Chapter 5: Strengths and weaknesses of a person.

“My philosophy is to

feel responsible for not only

life in general, but also for ensuring that in each

specific moment to do the best way

what you do. This setting will change

and your life for the better soon."

Oprah Winfrey

famous talk show host.

The concept of Strong and Weak choices raises questions - how can one learn to make these very Strong choices?

My life experience suggests that regularly making strong choices helps to develop and strengthen the Strengths of a person while working out the Weaknesses.

What are Strengths and Weaknesses and where do they come from?

Best of all, in my opinion, it helps to explain the concept of "Life as a journey." Imagine that you are going on a trip to the mountains. Usually, any trip is preceded by a period of preparation and collection.

The traveler collects the equipment that he will need on the trip. So if he goes to the mountains, he takes with him all the things that he will need in the mountains. And he does not take with him what is needed, for example, at sea and may not be needed in mountainous conditions.

The same goes for strengths and weaknesses. The soul goes into its incarnation on Earth with a clear understanding of the goals and objectives that it is going to implement in the material world.

And for these purposes, she chooses character traits suitable for her, future parents, country, city, gender, and so on. And also the Soul outlines the main events of life, its lessons, people with whom it will meet and communicate in its next incarnation.

And of course, she chooses in advance the abilities that she will have in this life. After all, it is her abilities that will give her in this incarnation the opportunity to go through and receive certain life lessons, for the sake of which she is planning her journey.

That is why it is very important to know your Strengths and Weaknesses. After all, it is the work with them, the development of strengths and the study of weaknesses that ultimately lead us to understanding the purpose of our journey!

And then we come to an understanding of our destiny in the current incarnation. And then it is easy and simple for us to make the most difficult Strong Choices. After all, they are naturally and most organically woven into our Path.

Human strengths

Scientists, having conducted a lot of experiments and experiments, proved that people who use their strengths in their activities:

1. Get extra energy feeling healthier, more satisfied and more confident.
2. less responsive to stressful situations and make more adequate decisions in difficult external conditions, it is easy for them to think positively.
3. Move faster and more successfully career ladder more in demand on the labor market and their wage much higher.
4. More variable, flexible and creative acquire knowledge faster and develop in their professional activity easily adapt to changing external circumstances.
5. An order of magnitude deeper involved in their activities and get real pleasure from it, connecting it with their purpose in life.
6. Happier and more satisfied with their lives, they are less likely to experience depression and mood swings.
7. Completely satisfied with their lives, are happier in marriage, their children grow up beautiful, smart and capable.

On my own behalf, I can also add that I experienced all the brightest, emotionally rich experiences and maximum satisfaction in life when I applied my strengths.

From theory, let's move on to practice. About the methods by which you can independently determine your strengths and weak sides, we will talk in the next chapter 6: "Three Techniques for Identifying Human Strengths."

In the meantime, let's look at what our society generally refers to as strengths.

Among them may be:

analytical thinking;

learnability;

a responsibility;

organization;

discipline;

diligence;

patience;

purposefulness;

self confidence;

sociability;

the ability to speak in public;

get to the bottom of the issue;

the ability to make decisions quickly;

and many others…

Weaknesses of a person.

Each of us, of course, has weaknesses. This is what we have been struggling with all our lives, what we want to change, work out, what we are ashamed of or afraid of.

1. Fix it yourself.

Weaknesses are not something worth working on all your life, investing huge efforts and tons of time.

It has been proven that it is much more effective to invest time, effort and money in developing strengths than overcoming weaknesses.

However, it is always possible to get a decent effect with little effort.

So always, when you start to learn some new knowledge or practice, you immediately get from 20 to 30% of progress. After all, if you had zero, then adding even a small amount of something to it gives a quick increase in quantity.

Therefore, always increase your weaknesses until, with little effort, they are greatly improved.

And when growth progress stops, just fix the result and move on.

1. Contact professionals.

If the weak side gives you inconvenience and constantly interferes with your life, and independent attempts to develop it did not help, then I recommend that you contact a professional.

Don't puff, puff, and puff out your cheeks like a novice weightlifter who thinks it will help him "take" more weight.

It is much more efficient in terms of investment and time to turn to the pros for help.

They will either help you themselves, or give effective recommendations to eliminate the consequences of your weakness.

1. Confess to yourself and adapt.

If neither the first nor the second option gave any strong improvements, then carefully look at your life.

How serious is the impact of your weakness on the quality of your life?

If the influence is not serious, then just admit to yourself that this quality is in you. Then consider this factor in your life.

So, for example, if you are constantly late, then just leave for important meetings or to the airport in advance. Ask people around you to give you a “pendel” at your request in serious moments so that they can help you cope.

What to do if the weak side has a serious impact on your life, for example, it is important for your professional activities?

In this case, you need to consider this in a special way and replace it with the strength of your team member or employee.

So, for example, if you are a gentle person, but lead people who recognize toughness and determination, then you definitely need a deputy who will strictly and decisively implement and implement your decisions.

"Light" and "dark" sides

A conversation about strengths and weaknesses will be incomplete if I keep silent about one of the important Cosmic laws.

This is the law of Duality or Duality of our being.

Chinese metaphysics tells us that everything in our world is dual. Everything can be divided into yin and yang. This principle is expressed by the well-known Yin-Yang symbol.

This principle of Tazi or the Great Limit tells us that everything has its "light" side and its "dark" side. And the strengthening of any side to the maximum leads to its transformation into its opposite.

Any even the most good quality, if it is too strengthened, it will turn into its opposite.

Fig. 2 The great principle of Tai Chi or the circle of Yin-Yang.

Strengths always have a "light" side and a "dark" side. So, for example, organization is a good strength, but its dark side- this is excessive inflexibility, adherence to the "letter", and not the spirit of the law, pedantry - no one will call these qualities strong. Moreover, they are more likely to be considered weak and annoying to others.

What can this give us to apply in our lives?

Firstly, try to look closely at your weaknesses. It is possible that most of them are exaggerated strengths. And you can quite easily transform it and make it your forte.

Or think about the fact that in some special circumstances your weaknesses can be considered strengths.

What could these conditions be?

Second, remember that strengthening of strengths should take place not so much on the quantitative how much at a qualitative level. Otherwise, you can easily deform your forte and become the owner of the weak side.

P.S. “The result of working with my strengths showed its amazing effect a few months after the start of the experiments. As two of my strengths, I began to develop emotional leadership and public speaking speaking and expressing my opinion wherever it was appropriate in my work. And they noticed me! Moreover, my future mentor, the head of a completely different direction in the company, noticed me. Noticing my abilities, he took the liberty of convincing the general director to transfer a competent employee from the foreign trade department to the development department as his assistant. The art of the Destiny Code and the study of the strengths of my Personality Core just opened up a new vision of myself for me! As a result, I quickly made a decision (although before understanding my personality and its characteristics, I would have doubted for a long time and could have missed the opportunity) and a month later we were traveling all over Russia, communicating with new interesting people, changing their perception of the business of fashion women's clothing and negotiating the opening of franchise dealerships. Within six months, my income doubled and, together with travel and bonuses, became over $ 1,200! This exceeded my salary of a foreign trade manager by more than 2 times and gave me the opportunity to become a bright, respected and well-known specialist in my company.

Practical Task:

1. Now, in order not to be just theorists, write in the comments below a list of your strengths and weaknesses, as you see them right now.

2. For advanced - try to find echoes of strengths in some of your weaknesses. Or come up with conditions in which your weaknesses can be in demand and needed.

Exist different points vision of what to do with the strengths and weaknesses of a person. We all naturally have different inclinations and talents. But the most successful people become those who apply a large number of effort for your work. That is, a hard-working person with average abilities will achieve more success than a talented one. Henry Ford believed that was the main way to achieve success. The search for the strengths and weaknesses of a person is closely related to the search for purpose () and long-term success.

Some psychologists believe that a person should try to correct his weaknesses. Most successful entrepreneurs believe that the emphasis should be on the strengths of a person - his talents and natural abilities, and to compensate for weaknesses with the help of the team. That is, using .

But how do you find your strengths and weaknesses? Which ones should be developed and which ones should be left alone?

How to understand your strengths?

The famous Russian psychologist Nikolai Kozlov tells in his books that people usually like to do what they can do well and vice versa. And in order to understand your inclinations, you can try to remember your hobbies and what you were fond of as a child. Often, children's hobbies in the future develop into a full-time job or even their own business.

In order to be as involved as possible in work or business, you need to really like this business. And that will be the key to success. That is why it is so important to develop in yourself such a quality as - in order to feel well your desires, interests, inclinations and emotions. In addition to find yourself and your strengths, you need to spend a lot of time experimenting. Constantly try new things.

When you try a new business, you need some time to understand whether it is for you or not. First pancake always goes lumpy. And that's okay.

If you managed to find your strengths, then if possible you need to strive to develop them. If you add perseverance and consistent efforts along with your talents, then you can achieve outstanding results.

We are able to develop any of our talents. This is due to the property of neuroplasticity of the brain. But it is better to direct more efforts to where there are already some serious inclinations.

There are character traits that are useful to develop for any person:

Dealing with personality weaknesses

Objectively, in addition to strengths, each of us has its own disadvantages. It doesn't need to be embarrassed or hidden. On the contrary, you need to understand yourself properly and be aware of your shortcomings. By and large, there is no point in directing all your efforts to combat your weaknesses. Developing a quality in which we initially lacked, it is difficult to achieve an outstanding level. Although - in some cases it may well be possible.

As a rule, you should simply avoid work that is not compatible with your weak qualities. May help in some cases work on your weak side and bring it down to the minimum acceptable level.

Your weaknesses should be taken into account when choosing a job, place of study. And it will promote life balance. We recently wrote a material about.

But there are weaknesses that are worth fighting in any case. this is about:

• and postponing things for later;
• and self-flagellation;
• and other low-tone states such as .

There are cases when people in the most difficult situations were able to get together and do what they want not because of their capabilities, but in spite of them.

Here, the presence of will and character. attitude towards life and optimism are also the companions of success.

The fact is that in order to be productive, and to be in the so-called state, you need to avoid such negative habits and depressed states.

You must clearly understand that we can reconfigure ourselves very flexibly by working with our mood, as well as by training the necessary qualities and getting rid of unnecessary habits. Even people who are terribly afraid of public speaking can eventually completely get rid of fears and become excellent speakers. always unpleasant, but allows us to develop.

Balance between strengths and weaknesses of the personality

As I already wrote, in interviews and in life in general, you should not be ashamed of your weaknesses. You need to choose a job where your weaknesses will not interfere much, and where your strengths, on the contrary, will drag your career forward.

At the same interviews, it is better to be honest about your weaknesses. Because they will pop up anyway. And it is better for the employer to know in advance that you have both advantages and strong personality traits, and disadvantages that are specific to you.

In my job, I often had to interview candidates for the position of "Sales Manager". In a corporate questionnaire, the candidate is usually asked to answer questions about his strengths and weaknesses. It is striking and surprising that for the most part people write replies. There are practically no weaknesses, and strengths written, as if, under a carbon paper.

One lady, answering a question about her weaknesses, wrote the following phrase: “I have no weaknesses. I got rid of them a long time ago." I wonder what she thinks to do next, if not developing and strengthening her various abilities? After all weak sides- is not bad habits that need to be disposed of, but something that needs constant attention and development.

Or the situation that I see all the time: people only know how to go to work. Someone else knows how to relax, someone combines relaxation with work in the country, well, and even little things. But no one dares to look into himself, his beloved ...

Think back to when you were a kid, or think back to when your kids were little. You know from experience that parents go out of their way to send their child to different schools (dance, sports, music, art, etc.) in order to determine what their child is passionate about. Where can he show his talents more strongly.

But as adults, we safely forget about it and surrender to the flow of life. Wherever it goes, we'll swim there. Someone still becomes successful in some activity, maybe due to luck or a favorable set of circumstances, but most do not think about the realization of their abilities, respectively, they do not achieve anything in their own lives.

This also happens because many people could not find their business, and did not even try to find it. In his book Golden Lessons: Achieving Goals, John Maxwell described the story of how he once looked into a store that sold all sorts of things. And his attention was attracted by a sign hanging at the entrance: “You will find absolutely everything here. If you can."

You probably know, the same can be said about any of us. Those unique abilities that are given to us, we must search very carefully. Perhaps they are hidden very deep.

Strengths. What's this?

Talents are at the heart of our strengths. Talent is the ability to do something better than something else. For example, you sing better than you knit. Or you play football better than you draw. When we develop our talents with knowledge and skills, we turn talents into strengths. Strengths are the ability to show high results in a particular activity. The next step is to polish your strengths to the level of mastery. That is why you need to pay great attention to your development and the development of your children.

Scientists have identified a list of human strengths:

1. Adaptability (change yourself depending on the requirements environment, adaptation, flexibility).
2. Activation (energy to get down to business and get it done).
3. Analytical thinking (understanding cause and effect, critical thinking).
4. Faith (the presence of deeply rooted values, ideas, the search for the meaning of life).
5. Inclusion (helping others become whole and successful).
6. Imagination (creativity, originality, new ideas and concepts).
7. Harmony (ability to find common ground, avoidance of conflicts).
8. Discipline (organization, ability to keep within time, order and structure).
9. Achievement (pursuit of goals, performance, satisfaction from what has been achieved).
10. Significance (great desire for recognition, hard work).
11. Individualization (perception of other people as individuals and recognition of their talents, attention to differences).
12. Intelligence (the ability to think in many directions, intellectual discussions, decisions).
13. Information (active acquisition of knowledge, curiosity).
14. Correction (recognition of problems and the ability to solve them).
15. Communication (explanation, clarification, ability to speak well).
16. Competition (hard work to achieve a high result, success, desire to win, comparison with others).
17. Context (to see historical parallels, objectively assess what is happening).
18. Maximalism (increase in personal and group skill level).
19. Learning (enjoying the learning process, focusing on improvement).
20. Orientation to the future (focus on the future, the ability to see opportunities, motivate others to act).
21. Responsibility (to be someone you can rely on, many duties and obligations).
22. Relationships (establishing intimate relationships with people)
23. Positivity (enthusiasm, optimism, excitement, stimulating others).
24. Consistency (equal treatment, fairness, preoccupation with good and evil).
25. Development (seeing the potential in others and helping them develop it).
26. Judgment (making the right decisions, thoroughness, considering all options).
27. Leadership (the ability to cope with conflicts and crises, the ability to bear responsibility).
28. Self-affirmation (self-confidence, independence of thinking).
29. Connectivity (connection of ideas or events into a meaningful whole).
30. Strategy (seeing the pros and cons, understanding the situation as a whole, developing an adequate action plan).
31. Focused (prioritization, direction setting, efficiency).
32. The ability to win over (quickly establishing contact with people, creating groups / relationships).
33. Ordering (organization, coordination, determining the right combination of people and means).
34. Empathy (understanding others, establishing supportive relationships).

And all you need to do is try to find out as much as possible what strengths our personality corresponds to.

Then you need to understand what jobs and activities correspond to these strengths. That is, in what area they could open up stronger and brighter.

If the task turned out to be difficult, try the strengths that best suit you, rate them on a 10-point scale. Thus, you will be able to identify those in which the combination of talents, knowledge, skills and abilities is most harmonious.

But that's not all. Now ask a few questions about each of them:

• Is it really mine?
• Do I enjoy doing this?
• Where and how can I apply them?
• What will I have to do to develop the necessary qualities in myself?
• How will this generate income for me?

Right now you will have those strengths that you either want or do not want to use and develop. Good receiver? And what's really important is that it works. Introduce this method to your loved ones, perhaps it will help them paint their lives in brighter colors.

If any of you are already in the process of identifying your strengths, i.e. actively acting and learning to manage your life on your own, it will also be effective for you to use this technique, which, by the way, can be used in many situations.

Let's take website building as an example. Among my colleagues, webmasters, there are mostly people who do this not under compulsion, but while experiencing the joy and pleasure of doing an interesting and favorite thing. But even in this case, each of us manifests precisely those strengths in which he feels much more comfortable.

As you know, the webmaster combines various professions: designer, writer, SEO (promotion), programmer, coder. In a word, a master of all trades. Of course, it is difficult to have so many talents at once in order to be successful in all directions at once. And over time, each of us finds the area in which he feels at ease, then there is a desire to become a professional, and then an expert, the level of which allows him to teach other people. But for this, of course, you need to make a lot of effort.

P.S. By the way, if you dream of becoming a professional designer, then you can learn this at the Yulia Pervushina Design School. Even if you are not a designer at all and do not know how to draw, but there is a great desire to get a highly paid Internet profession, then you can sign up here:

For example, I am more attracted to the field of copywriting than programming, although, I confess, you still need to know the basics of programming for blogging. But let this remain my weakness. I'd rather improve my talents. By the way, about my colleagues: we are united by the most important thing - we are engaged in an interesting and beloved business, which allows us to discover new abilities, talents in ourselves, and turn them into strengths.

Not everyone requires your resume to show your weaknesses. But if there is such an item in the form, then putting a dash will be a mistake. It is better to look at an example of the weaknesses of the character in the summary.

What to write

Please consider your answer before completing the deficiencies box. Don't skip it by any means. ideal people does not exist. As a rule, managers want to see how adequately you evaluate yourself. If you do not know what to write, look at the suggested options and choose something that suits you best.

Universal formula: select such character traits that are a virtue for performing this particular job, and in ordinary life can indeed be considered a human defect.

You can write the following weaknesses:

• excessive directness, the habit of telling the truth in the eye;
• difficulty in establishing contact with strangers;
• inability to be flexible in labor matters;
• reliability;
• increased anxiety;
• excessive emotionality, irascibility;
• love for formalism;
• restlessness;
• slowness;
• hyperactivity;
• fear of air travel.

All these weaknesses in the resume can become advantages if you look at them from a different angle. An example is restlessness. For a sales representative or an active sales manager, this can even be a plus. The same goes for reliability. For the manager, this is a signal that you may be the person who will do all the overtime work.

Linking weaknesses to the characteristics of professions

All applicants should think about how to correctly write my weaknesses for a resume. For example, a future accountant or design engineer might write:

• incredulity;
• excessive scrupulousness;
• increased anxiety;
• excessive demands on oneself;
• straightness;
• pedantry;
• modesty;
• inability to lie;
• difficulty establishing contact with strangers;
• pride;
• lack of flexibility in labor matters;
• adherence to principles;
• overestimated sense of responsibility;
• lack of diplomacy.

• hyperactivity;
• self-confidence;
• restlessness;
• impulsiveness;
• the need for external motivation;
• incredulity, desire to double-check and confirm all information.

Disadvantages for one profession can become advantages for another.

You can also indicate in your resume among your negative qualities:

• straightness;
• workaholism;
• excessive love for communication.

Applicants for the position of manager need to prepare before filling in the specified column. It is better to think in advance what weaknesses to indicate in the resume. They can write about such character traits:

• excessive emotionality;
• pedantry;
• love for little things;
• thoughts about work, planning take most free time;
• increased demands on others.

A good example is the following:

• inability to respond with rudeness to rudeness;
• the tendency to make decisions based on one's own opinion;
• mistrust of people and a love of confirmation of facts.

Some applicants choose to indicate that they:

• overly trusting;
• can raise their voice to subordinates;
• straightforward, express their opinion without veiled embellishments;
• quick-tempered;
• always looking for confirmation of words;
• have a hypertrophied sense of responsibility;
• prone to formalism and pay too much attention to detail;
• irritated by disorder;
• slow;
• do not like to do things for the sake of others.

For all occasions

Many are afraid to write about shortcomings, believing that the employer will immediately send their resume to the trash can. Of course, you should not be too frank, but you should not completely skip this section of the questionnaire. In this case, you can write about some neutral qualities that will not affect the work in any way. For a person applying for any vacancy, among the inherent weaknesses can be indicated:

• fear of airplanes;
• Arachnophobia (fear of spiders), Vespertiliophobia (fear of bats), ophidiophobia (fear of snakes);
• excess weight;
• lack of experience;
• age (suitable for people over 40 years old);
• love for shopping
• sweet love.

This information does not characterize you in any way, it simply speaks of your fears or small weaknesses.

The following shortcomings can be stated:

• I do not always accurately express my thoughts;
• I trust people too much;
• prone to reflection;
• I often analyze past mistakes, focusing on them too much attention;
• I spend a lot of time evaluating my actions.

These are negative qualities, but they should not affect the workflow.

Regardless of the position for which you are applying, you can write such weaknesses in your resume:

• I get so carried away with work that I forget to take breaks;
• I can’t build relationships with colleagues because I don’t like gossip;
• I can’t fight back in response to a boorish appeal;
• I constantly pass all situations through myself;
• let people get too close;
• I can't swear;
• I noticeably worry when I have to lie.

Important nuances

Please note that there are items that are better left unmentioned. You should not write, for example, that you:

• like to be lazy;
• afraid to take responsibility;
• do not like to make decisions;
• not punctual;
• are often distracted;
• think only about salary;
• love office romances.

For example, by writing about your laziness in your resume, you risk: the employer will decide that you do not want to work.