- Blog By
Ms. Sumita Sen Mazumdar
Editor – Content & Academic Coordinator – KG
The Indian Public School
February 6, 2020 | In Blog 
What does it really mean to know your strengths? A staple at any job interview is to list some of your strengths and weaknesses. A clever few will reword a few strengths to pass them off as apparent weaknesses. Like stating that they are prone to spending too much time on excessive detail; a roundabout way of saying they’re very thorough in their work. Well that’s in the world of resumes where some creative writing and fast talking could help you secure that coveted job spot.
What comes after that?
To actually do a job well, you do need to understand what your strengths and weaknesses are in relation to the job requirements, and how to offset the weaknesses with strengths.
So, while acknowledging what you can do better than most others easily, you also need to conclusively know what your limits are. For example, you could be a good writer and you consider this a strength. However, to make good use of that strength you must also honestly be able to assess your capacity to prevent a burnout and underperforming. Knowing that you’re currently a good writer for only up to 1500 words a day, recognising that beyond this limit you can’t write without compromising on quality is understanding your limit and your weakness. Understanding your limit is essential if you want to meaningfully showcase your strengths. Every process in this world has its limits. The same for humans. Even if you have talent, you must understand and manage your talent by honest self-assessment. Without this, you are likely to be headed for the world of inconsistent performance, where one day people appreciate you as a brilliant performer and the next day as a moody, careless and below-average one.
Try it to know if you like it
For a student, it is useful to be able to understand where their strengths in academic or extracurricular areas lie early on. This is why it is a good idea to let children initially explore different subjects and activities at school. Once they know, they can later on whittle out what doesn’t work for them and focus on an area or passion that they can take up in life for further studies or a career. If you don’t let your child try basketball, they’ll never know if they like it, despise it or maybe even be brilliant at it. Childhood at school should be all about having a safe place to learn, explore and try out different things. Not everyone shows their strengths or talents on day#1 of pursuing something. Most need some time and that is perfectly fine.
Managing strengths is as important as knowing them
To create a generation of adults who know exactly what their strengths are, how to keep developing them and use them toward general betterment in life, we must let children try different things and find out for themselves what their strengths are and also how to manage them skilfully.
Also read THE HISTORY OF ARCHERY & ARCHERS’ VICTORIES | TIPS
