Marcus Buckingham shares a very compelling outlook on the power of focusing on your strengths versus your weaknesses. I could totally relate to being the parent who focuses on the 20% we are not doing well or being raised that way.
As a parent myself, I find that we gravitate towards investing more time on the areas where my daughter does well. we do invest time in the other areas as well but we try not to make it a negative or demotivating experience. She becomes frustrated when others in class are doing well in an area that she is challenged with. We have the discussion of how we all have our gifts and some things come naturally to some people and to others, you need to work a little harder. Not everyone is good at everything, just do the best you can.
Personally, I am in a job where my strengths are leveraged every day-it’s my dream job and I feel fortunate that I have the opportunity. I am much more motivated to continue to drive the experience for my clients. I enjoy going to work and doing my job and honestly, it feels good to perform well every day and be recognized for it. It took me a while to get to this place in my career but now that I have arrived, I wouldn’t want my work situation to be any different.
Bring that back to my daughter and I hope that she too can have the same experience in her learning’s and career.
As a parent I too related to focusing on what your child is not doing well. Especially as it relates to school. I grew up hearing that if you worked hard enough you would excel. I like Math (as an adult), but I am not good at math. In high school I think the only reason my teacher passed me in Geometry is because I worked so hard at it. I would be down getting his help before school, during lunch, and he was also my study hall teacher. My bus seat mate was a math whiz and he would help me on the daily hour ride home. But I still only made a C in class that year.