Improve Your Strengths, Not Your Weaknesses

In the Western world, we're brought up with the mentality of building on our weaknesses rather than our strengths. Am I the only one who feels that that's a bit backwards?

If a kid at school sucks at French, the teacher will make them do more French until they've got the hang of it, regardless of whether that kid wants to learn French or not. When you're forced to work on the things you dislike doing or you're not passionate about, your outcome is at best average and people don't get to see you in your best light.

A few weeks ago I was having a chat with my friend Rob about this and he told me a story about a girl who was troublesome at school – she had terrible grades and was disruptive in class. The school invited her parents in, and eventually the parents met with a psychiatrist to find out what the problem with their kid was.

The psychiatrist spoke with the girl and left her in his office alone for a while. He asked the parents to wait outside with him and watch what she did.

After about fifteen minutes the girl got up and started dancing around the room. The psychiatrist told the parents and the school that there was nothing wrong with this girl at all, she was neither disruptive nor unintelligent, she just wanted to dance. All of those times she was being disruptive, she was upset because she wasn't dancing, and sure enough when her parents sent her to dance school, she excelled and eventually went on to become a successful dancer.

If you try to be great at everything, you'll be great at nothing.

If you waste your time trying to improve your weaknesses, you end up being mediocre at multiple things, but great at nothing. If your focus is narrow and deep, you can invest your time and energy in being exceptional at what you're most passionate about. Which not only means you're able to spend your time doing what you enjoy, but it means you become more valuable and more successful at whatever it is you choose to do.

Sure, it's harder to go from good to great than it is to go from bad to average, but the outcome is far more valuable, exciting, and rewarding.

I believe education should be about helping people to identify their core strengths and passions and then building on those strengths. If that were the case, I would bet my bottom dollar that we would see significantly less people unemployed, dropping out of education or dissatisfied in their careers, because they'd have a passion to pursue.

If by any chance anyone with the authority to make this a reality is reading this, please get in touch, as I'd love to know the boundaries that need to be overcome to start sticking people to their strengths in education.