rely, but not too much.
by bill reeb
while there are many lessons in martial arts that repeat themselves, the idea that a strength can also become a weakness is a commonly recurring one.
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but it doesn’t make sense – how could a strength ever be bad? well, here are a couple of examples.
i enjoy my life, but i like to work! as an overachiever, i work all of the time and many days i am consumed with tasks i want to accomplish. even when i play, i approach play like work – i want to be a better martial artist, better golfer, better skier.
do you remember my hike up el yunque? are you starting to see the weakness here? i can be so driven that without an objective or a goal, i can quickly lose interest.
for example, i drive a hybrid. only those who drive hybrid vehicles will identify with what i am going to say, but once an overachiever has a second-by-second feedback mechanism that updates you on your miles per gallon usage, it almost becomes a competition to see how many miles you can squeeze out of a gallon of gas. i got to the point that every time i would drive my car, i would create significant useless and unproductive stress trying to at least maintain or beat my highest miles per gallon performance.
i know it will come as no surprise that my drive to improve has been and still is one of my strengths. but it was not as obvious to me until i started writing my book how that same drive was creating unnecessary frustration in my life as well.
being entrepreneurial is a strength, but with success, it can quickly become a weakness. my client’s superior negotiation skills are a strength, but applied all of the time, these skills have become his weakness. another common example i find is someone who is a great motivator, but a terrible manager. though motivators are fantastic at getting everyone excited and wanting to do their best, it is not uncommon for these same leaders to avoid conflict and create limited accountability because they don’t like having these more negative conversations. while any strength will offer advantages in specific situations, a strength applied to almost every situation will equally and sometimes more devastatingly become a weakness.
the message here is twofold. first, be aware that your strengths will also surface in specific situations as your weaknesses. and second, the more you overrely and overapply your strengths, the greater chance those strengths have of becoming a weakness and undermining your overall progress toward your goals (therefore, negatively impinging on your feelings of success or happiness).
assess yourself on whether you overrely on your strengths turning them into weaknesses. circle how you feel you are doing. on this subject, i:
- need a lot of work
- need a little work
- am okay
- feel good where i am
what strengths do i have that i am not recognizing as weaknesses as they create unnecessary chaos in my life?
what strengths am i applying to almost every situation that are having diminishing returns in their effectiveness?