Strength comes from within and it requires a person to be actively in pursuit of it. You will never get stronger sitting around waiting for strength to find you. So how do I get set up to strengthen myself. First off, realize that you already have many strengths and that some of them you have yet to realize you have, because you have never yet been put in a situation where you need to use it. Each and every time you use an attribute that you have, it is like pumping a muscle, and it becomes stronger. I said earlier that it is not the weights in the gym that make you stronger, but it is the resistance they produce that make the muscles stronger. You don’t even need to use weights to become stronger, you just need to exercise and stretch the muscles regularly and they will grow.

Other than the frequency of use of attributes we have, how else can we grow and strengthen ourselves? We can grow through education. If you are not as adept at a skill that you feel that you need, learn it. Our minds are very powerful, in fact scientists say that we only use less that ten percent of our brains ability, so we have a tremendous capability to learn.

Take a class, sign up for a webinar, read a book on the subject. There are myriad ways to gain knowledge. Zig Ziglar refers to something as “Automobile University,” using the amount of time we spend in a car each and every day as an opportunity to listen to books on tape, or podcasts. There is virtually a podcast available on any subject to day. Audible is another great tool to aid in your degree from Automobile University.

Experience, if you know someone that is good at what you want to improve on, ask them if you could assist them, kind of learn the ropes from them. Sometimes life is not always the best teacher because often the test is given first and the lesson is learned later. I have said that “We all learn by making mistakes, but we tend to learn much faster if the mistake hurts.” On that note remember that you don’t have to make every mistake yourself, you don’t have to be Consumer Reports for the clumsy. If some one tells you that the stove is hot, believe them and save your self the pain of experiencing it firsthand.

I have said several times throughout this process that we are not going to be talking about weaknesses, because dwelling on our weaknesses is not going to help us realize a positive attitude or will it help us to become more successful. In fact, dwelling on the negative will only lead to more negative thoughts and deflation of an already bruised ego.

We do need to take a look at and identify what some of the attributes that we have we don’t consider a strength. Keep in mind that the things that we are not strong in are also the things that add to our overall uniqueness and individualism that is the person we are.

If we take an honest look at ourselves, we have probably at sometime or another realized that we have areas in our lives where we are not strong. Again, this is not a bad thing, we can’t all be strong in every aspect, that would make this whole self-improvement thing unnecessary. Earlier I talked about how we can gain a better return on our investment (ROI) on improving ourselves in areas in which we are already strong, rather than trying to build an area of weakness into a strength. I also said that anytime that you strengthen and area of strength you can automatically expect that you will also strengthen other areas at the same time, even though we had not intended to do so.

If you are having a bit of difficulty in thinking of strengths as either strong or not so strong and if it makes better sense to use the term, as much as I despise it, weakness, then keep this in mind.

A weakness is just an underdeveloped attribute. So just like there is a runt in every litter, a weakness is just the runt in your litter of strengths. An under developed attribute is still something of value, you will at times be required to make use of that attribute in situations.

If you have an area that you feel is not your strong point, realize it, admit it, and deal with it. I will be the first to tell you that I do not feel that finances and book keeping are on my list of strengths. Could I develop them? Yes. Would I be really good at it? Probably not. Why? First off, I don’t have an interest in it, secondly, I think that there are people that already are very good at it and that I can hire them to help me. It is perfectly to fill in behind you with people who are strong in your areas of deficiency.  (I am really trying hard not to use the word “weakness.)

We all have areas of strength, we all have areas of mediocrity, and we all have areas that we will probably never develop into a strength. But know that each of these areas are the materials that build us into the person we are, and we are all unique, just like everyone else.

 

Dirty Harry was a man of few words but his famous quote, “A man has got to know his limitations.” Is probably one of the most often quoted lines from a movie, and even though it is not real deeply philosophical, it is true. There are going to be some things that we just may never accomplish.

 

We tell our children that they can be anything they want to be when they grow up, and they set some pretty high goals, like being a ballerina, a football star, President of the USA, or even as my childhood dream was, to be an astronaut. It is great to have dreams and I would never try to stifle a child’s dream no matter how farfetched it is. As we grow older we start to come to grips with the ideas that we were pitched when we were younger were more fairy-tail than reality.

 

Yes, there is always the possibility that we will attain our childhood dreams but the probability, being more realistic is that we won’t. Let me offer this example, I am a 52-year-old male, 5ft 10 inches tall and weigh about 220 pounds, I have a dream of being a professional ballet dancer. I have never taken a single dance lesson, I have a bad back, decrepit hip joints, and shin splints and by the way, no sense of balance. I can try, hard as I may but the possibility of me attaining a lead role in the “Nutcracker,” unless backed by the Make A Wish Foundation, is probably not going to become a reality. Now on the other hand if I would like to try my hand at dancing, I could possibly take some lessons and join a community dance group and at some time be part of a dance recital. I have come to the realization that I need to know my limitations, and you can thank me later.

 

Me in a tutu…Barf

 

We are going to take a look at some of the things that we just may now be cut out to do. In the previous section I asked you to select someone who would give you open and honest feedback on something that you could do to improve yourself, and in this section, we are going to spend some time looking dealing with and accepting some of our lessor qualities. Remember this as we go forth, a weakness in not a character flaw, it is one of your unique attributes that make you the unique individual that you are.

Way too often, we compare ourselves to others. This is something we need to stop doing immediately. When we start comparing ourselves, our situations, our sense of success and base it on how others appear to be doing, remember, it is just an appearance. We never really know what type of problems or issues that other person may be dealing with, it may be stress, ill-health, a family crisis, or any number of issues or problems. When we compare ourselves to others we are taking how we feel inside, how we talk to our self, how we stress about situations and try to balance it all out on the other person’s outward appearance. That other person may appear to be calm, cool and collected, but we are not privy to the fierce storm that may be brewing with in their own mind. Many times, if we only knew what that other person was dealing with, we would gladly keep our position where we are and not, by any means trade what we have for what they have.

The only person that you can fairly compare yourself too it the person you see in the mirror each morning. If you want to strive to be better, strive to be better than YOU were yesterday. You will never win the comparison war with another person, you can’t keep up with Jones’ and live a healthy, productive life.

No matter what stage of life you may be in right now, I can guarantee you that no matter how good or bad you have it, someone somewhere will have it worse of better than you. There are people right now, that would give anything to have or to be what you are right now, you say that is foolish? If you really believe that no one has it worse than you, go visit a homeless shelter, visit a cancer center, volunteer at a senior living facility, visit a recovery center, or just slowly walk through your neighborhood. Some one will always have it worse than you, and someone will always appear to be better off.

 

Magnification

Strengths, once identified and taken possession of personally can then at any time start to be multiplied. By multiplied, I mean that they become stronger and stronger as long as they are appropriately and frequently exercised. Building on the strengths that you currently have will provide you with a greater return on your investment than trying to build up a perceived weakness.

If we look at the numbers, a ten percent increase on a strength will produce an ROI of an 8 to equal a new strength of 8.8.

If we take that same ten percent increase and apply it to a strength of only a 2, we would realize an ROI of 2.2, six tenths less than what we realized on the strength of 8.

So, you can see that multiplication is indeed a factor to consider when developing or improving on strengths. You will most likely find that as you start building on one are of strength you will actually notice and gain an improvement on other areas of strength. Kind of like trees in the forest, they compete with each other to get taller to get more sunlight.

Uniqueness

I have said it earlier, but it is well worth mentioning again, that you are the only one who is, ever has been, or ever will be, the unique individual that you are. No one else will have the same knowledge, experience, and wisdom that you have. It is important to realize this and accept it as a good thing, be proud of your uniqueness. Anyone and everyone has the ability to be average, and average has the ability to become normal. As MJ Demarco wrote in his book, The Millionare Fast Lane, Demarco defines normal in this fashion:

“Normal is waking at 6 a.m., fighting traffic, and working eight hours. Normal is to slave at a job Monday through Friday, save 10%, and repeat for 50 years. Normal is to buy everything on credit. Normal is to believe the illusion that the stock market will make you rich. Normal is to believe that a faster car and a bigger house will make you happy. You’re conditioned to accept normal based on society’s already corrupted definition of wealth, and because of it, normal itself is corrupted. Normal is modern-day slavery. Don’t be normal.”

Magnification of your strengths will make you different form your peers, it is perfectly okay to be different. Different is not normal until you make it normal. As Peter Voogd states in his book,6 Months to 6 Figures, Figure out what makes you different and unique…. It’s one thing to say you’re different, but it’s another to think, act, and actually live differently.”

Magnification of your strengths will set you apart for others and you will be noticed for being different, but in a positive light.

 

 

You have made a list of your top ten strengths, you need to realize that it is you that is in possession of these strengths and that they truly are unique to only you. Think of strengths as options on a new car, in most cases, the more you have the more the car is worth.

Using this new car analogy, would you pay for an option if you didn’t understand what value it had or what benefit it would be to you. Think too, that not every option is beneficial to everyone equally. For example, a wheel chair lift would be of great value to someone with a disability that needed it, but that same option would be of little use and would provide little value to someone who didn’t need it, in fact it would in all likelihood decrease the value of that vehicle for the owner that didn’t find it necessary.

Identifying strengths will help you to identify even more strengths. As you go forward from here, I want you to keep adding to this list of strengths. Each time you identify a new strength or one that you failed to recognize the first time, write it down. I am going to challenge you to write down as many strengths as you can, make a goal to see if you can identify your top 100 strengths. Now don’t think this is crazy, I have actually had a lady start working on her list and believe it or not, by the end of a weekend, she had listed 127 strengths that she had identified. I was amazed! I asked her how she did it so quickly. She told me that she was looking for a way to build her self-confidence and improve on her self-esteem and that once she had started the list and got to around 20, she felt so invigorated by the process and started feeling so good about herself that she just could not stop writing. Now, is this woman someone with a huge ego or totally self-centered? No! absolutely not! She is one of the most humble, modest, sweet, kind, and passionate women I have ever known. I find it truly uplifting when someone is able to do something as simple as making a list find such power in it to transform one’s life. What will this exercise do for you? Try It and report back to me.

 

Our thoughts, include our self-talk, limiting beliefs, attitude, and affirmation, all come together and if held in a positive light add to our confidence level. We all need to have a high level of self -confidence, I am not talking about being arrogant or pompous, but having the self-confidence that is going to add value to ourselves and others whom we relate with. Like so many of the items mentioned, our confidence is really an attribute that we choose to make positive or negative. Living a life with low self confidence is a life where we never achieve much of anything significant. With a higher level of self-confidence, we can at least hedge our bets that we will have a more favorable outcome.

 

How do we improve and strengthen our self-confidence? First off, confidence is really nothing more than knowledge. When we were young and first learned to ride a bicycle, we had little confidence, but as we practiced more and more and finally were able to control our balance and speed we were riding. As we continued to ride we gained more knowledge of what was possible and what was not a good idea. This knowledge came from experience. It wasn’t long before we had the knowledge, experience, and confidence to ride a bike as well as the next person. As we think about that process of transitioning from a goal to achievement, let’s look at the steps in closer detail. First, I said that self-confidence comes from knowledge, and that knowledge is gained through experience, and experience is gained through learning or living. All of this starts with a dream of accomplishing something that we currently can not or have not tried to do, a goal.

 

The first time that you do something you are inexperienced and with that being said, you lack some level of confidence because you are not sure that you are capable of doing it. If you were to stop at this point and say that you can’t do it because you have never done it, you will be stuck. But if you get past the point of doubting your abilities and try it, you may find it quite easy, and with each attempt after that, you become better and better at it and you build up your confidence. Now, you have done this same task a thousand times, how confident are you now in your abilities to accomplish it, I doubt that you even think about the process anymore, just like riding a bicycle. It becomes second nature. Confidence comes from repetition, and we can learn how to do things, it just takes a bit of courage to do it.

 

Confidence is truly a choice that we make, and every choice we make will either increase or decrease our confidence level. If each choice you make is based around the idea that you want to succeed or fail, I know that you will choose to succeed. Peter Voogd, in his book 6 Months to 6 Figures says, “The person with the most confidence always wins, and nobody respects an insecure leader. Successful people make choices based on who the want to become versus feeling comfortable in the moment.”

 

Take some time and think about what kind of choices that you need to start making that will improve your self-confidence. Start small and watch what happens when you start doing and making confident building choices.

Doesn’t it feel good when you have a sense of a job well done? Remember back when you were a child and your parents told you how proud they were of you? These types of feelings are what affirms out values, beliefs, morals and even our self-worth. Many of us now, when paid a compliment, we feel uneasy, we play it down as being no big deal, or were doubt the sincerity of the person who gave the compliment. What has changed?

 

When we were children, we thrived on someone being proud of us, we worked hard to get noticed and receive a compliment. These things made us feel good. Now that we are older, why is it that we don’t believe that we need that anymore? In fact, we probably need it more now than ever before. We have had many years of hearing bad news, being disappointed, and negative self-talk. Why don’t we want a compliment or a pat on the back for something we truly deserve? It has been said that, “One ‘Oh crap’ wipes out the ‘Atta-Boy’s’” so we need to build up a supply of atta-boys to keep our affirmation account from turning negative.

 

Have we become hardened and feel that a pat on the back is degrading in some ways or is it our stubbornness that tells us we are to rough and tumble to be in need of such childish acts of affirmation?

 

I find it interesting that people who take compliments well are the ones that more readily dish them out too. How often do you give a sincere compliment to someone, affirming their value to you? When was the last time you told yourself that you are of value and compliment yourself? We need to put affirmations and compliments into our daily practices, give them out freely, but also at the same time be sincere. An insincere compliment is really just a put down in disguise.

 

For an assignment, let’s see how we can implement affirmation into our daily lives and rituals. Make a list of 5 people that you feel are due an affirming compliment form you, List the person and the compliment due them:

 

Name                                                               Compliment

__________________________________     _________________________________________

__________________________________     _________________________________________

__________________________________     _________________________________________

__________________________________     _________________________________________

__________________________________     _________________________________________

 

Now that you have made this list, go ahead and pay that person the compliment they are due. Be sincere and expect nothing in return and see the expression on their faces. It may be that they blush, smile, giggle, say thank you, return a compliment or even ask “What do you want from me?” Don’t wait for a conversation to start, just make your compliment, smile and go on your way. I think you will be surprised what happens next.

 

Now that you have had an opportunity to make a compliment and you know how it feels to give one out, give yourself a sincere compliment for brightening the day of someone who just may have been looking for something like that to get them through the day!

 

By the way… The was a very nice gesture on your part, good job!

Your attitude is a gateway to your personality. It is impossible to have a good personality and have a bad attitude. These two items must be congruent to be authentic. Are you a “Glass half-full,” or a “Glass half-empty” type of person? I like to think of myself as the “Glass is refillable” type of person. This statement is even a demonstration of attitude, one that tends to ride the fence, or doesn’t choose sides because I don’t like conflict. The really wonderful thing about your attitude is that you get to choose yours every day. Just like a belief that is negotiable, your attitude is also negotiable. You wake up every morning and have the choice to see the day as partly cloudy or mostly sunny, the choice is truly yours to make.

 

I heard a story about a married couple, the husband was a bit of a complainer, always able to find the negative in most any situation. The wife was one who constantly tried to please her husband in hopes that someday he would see the error in his ways. One morning as the couple was sitting at the breakfast table, the wife asked her husband what he would like to eat, the husband gruffly responded, “Two eggs, one fried, one scrambled.” The wife went to work to fill his order, when she presented the husband his plate he disgustedly barked, “You scrambled the wrong egg!” I hope that you are in no way in possession af an attitude as bad as that, but even that grumpy old man had it in his box of tools to make a better perception of the situation at hand and find at least some good in what was occurring.

 

To improve our attitudes, I feel that it is imperative to seek to find the good in all situations, this is hard and I am not at a level of perfection myself, ask my wife. But, if we work to see the good in every situation we will start to see the good in more and more things. We will start to seek out the good in all situations and this will build our positive attitude. Remember, this is a simple thing to do, but it is far from easy, if it were everybody would be a smiling bundle of joy and maybe that would start to be a little irritating.

 

When I work with individuals and even groups, I like to start each session by asking, “What is good in your world today?” and as we go along I ask them later to tell me “What is your win for the past week?” At first, folks struggle with this question and really have difficulty coming up with something. Many will say, “Well I am here and breathing.” This is a good start, as I would hate for them to be here and not breathing. It always intrigues me that as we go along each week, people start finding all kinds of things that were good that week and some have trouble by the end of the sessions to keep their win for the week to just one item, many say, “Wow, I don’t know where to begin, there were so many wins this past week.”

 

I never, in these sessions ask for what is bad or what is wrong as we all know what those items are, and we most likely have reflected on them enough to make us nauseous. No one is harder on us than our self, so there is no sense in dwelling on them. Besides, we are working on developing a positive attitude not participating in a pity party. Keeping a positive attitude can be difficult but if you stay at it long enough it will become a regular part of your routine and you will find that you have developed a better attitude in just a few short days.

 

What is your win for the week?