
Positive psychology is based on the idea that building on our strengths is often a more effective path to success than trying to force excellence in areas we are simply not suited for. In practice, this technique involves identifying one’s strengths and working to provide yourself with more opportunities to use them.
Martin Seligman, the father of Positive Psychology says that for a person to be truly happy and live a meaningful life, that person must recognize their personal strengths and use these strengths for the greater good.

Growing up, I sucked at math like most people. I didn’t like to solve it & would get sick from the mere thought of something as basic as LCM/HCF. I was, however, good at English. I loved to write stories and to be frank, they were captivating enough because I was always the go-to person for my classmates when they needed a storyline for a drama presentation.
My parents weren’t impressed with my math grade so they got me a math tutor. To be honest, they didn’t pay much attention to my commendable English grade.
Now, this tutor would tell me on several occasions to forget English and focus on math. He said math was my weakness and if I should be putting effort into anything, it had to be math, not English.
“You already know English. Focus on math”
At the end of the term, I still didn’t top in math and my English grade dropped from excellent to fair.
Positive psychology is a scientific approach to studying human thoughts, feelings, and behaviour, with a focus on strengths instead of weaknesses, building the good in life instead of repairing the bad, and taking the lives of average people up to “great” instead of focusing solely on moving those who are struggling up to “normal” (Peterson, 2008).
When it comes to strengths and weaknesses, which do you think you need to focus on to be more successful and lead a happier life?
Culturally we tend to not focus on our strengths and we are pressed to conform to the social norm of being modest, even self-effacing. As children, we are indirectly taught to focus on our weaknesses and this habit continues into adulthood. Where again we tend to focus more on our weaknesses than our strengths. This way of thinking is incorrect in that we believe it is our weaknesses, rather than our strengths, that are our greatest areas of growth.
Professor Alex Linley, defines strength as “a particular way of behaving, thinking, or feeling that is authentic and energizing to the user, and enables optimal functioning, development and performance.”
With that definition, you understand that people who focus on their strengths are more confident, and have higher levels of energy and vitality. They are also more resilient, perform better at work and are more likely to achieve their goals.
Strength is your ability to consistently produce a positive outcome on a specific task. It helps you increase positive emotions, enhance your self-confidence, and gives you the greatest potential for success. You’ll get the biggest bang for the buck by honing the skills you already have. Focus on what you are good at, instead of what you are not.
If you are good at writing and bad at making music, it is only wise to focus on ways to become a better writer and ways to hone your writing skills for a sustainable means of income rather than spending your entire day at the studio trying to record a song that will most likely be a disaster to the ears.
Have you identified your strengths? Do you know your weaknesses?

Employees have long focused on fixing weaknesses to increase their chances of success. But recent research suggests that this long-standing advice may not be the best coaching. In fact, when leaders, teams, cultures, and individuals focus on strengths, they have a better chance of winning than if they focus on improving deficiencies.
Imagine what would have happened if Oprah Winfrey chose to sing instead or Elon Musk chose to be an architect? Imagine your best world leaders and role models focused on their weaknesses and not the strength you know them to possess. Imagine how your life would have turned out if you focused on your strengths and expanded your knowledge of them.
Instead of spending time criticizing yourself, and focusing on the wrong things, try to take an objective approach to understand your journey. Performing a SWOT Analysis is a great way to retrain the way you think about yourself. S = strengths W= weaknesses O = opportunities T = threats.
Now you may ask, what should I do with my weaknesses then?
Albert Einstein didn’t need to be a good painter, baker or tailor. He could enjoy art, eat cookies and wear suits all made by somebody else. Spending more time trying to improve his pastry-making skills would have robbed him of precious hours to develop general relativity.
In essence, you can outsource your weaknesses while you learn mastery of your strengths. Someone may not be able to write that poem just as you can or play the piano or create that software, but someone else can cook better than you would have ever cooked (because it’s not your strength), you can choose to outsource to these people who do well in the field.
Secondly, you can choose to safely ignore your strengths. If you’re a writer who isn’t very funny, you don’t need to be comedic in your prose. If you’re bad at math, you can avoid making your career rest on numerical virtuosity.
Also, you can choose to improve your weaknesses. A saying goes, “sometimes a weakness is merely an undiscovered strength”. It’s often through lack of practice, rather than genuine lack of talent, that our weaknesses hobble us. Therefore, if you want to improve your weakness, that might be the best sign to work on it more than anything else.
We hope you found this article useful. Which of these approaches are you applying in your life already? Outsourcing, improving or ignoring your weaknesses?
Kindly drop us your insights. We’d love to read from you!