FOCUS ON YOUR STRENGTHS
There is an interesting story of a 10-year old boy who decided to study judo despite the fact that he had lost his left arm in a car accident. Others could only see a little boy without a left arm, but he refused to focus on what he did not have but on what he had. And so the little boy sought for a master who could believe in him and see his strength in what others thought to be a weakness. Before long, he found an experience judo master who was willing to teach him and began lessons.
For three long months, the master thought the boy only a single move. Several months later, the master took the boy to his first tournament. To his delight and the shock of everyone, he won his first three matches. In the final contest, his opponent was the state champion who was bigger, stronger, and more experienced. But using his one move, the boy pinned his rival and won the tournament. He became the new champion.
A flabbergasted reporter rushed to the little boy after the contest and asked him, ‘’How were you able to perform that impossible feast? How did you win the state champion seeing that you lack an arm? ‘’The little boy looked at the reporter, smiled, and then replied, ‘’I won for two main reasons’’. He paused and then continue, ‘’First, my master has thought me very well and I have almost mastered one of the most difficult throws in judos. And second, the only known defense for that move is for my opponent to grab my left arm, and I don’t have any. What you and others thought was my weakness was actually my strength. I choose to focus on and develop my strength.
Every single human being has strengths and weaknesses. This is true for every one of us. Great people and highly successful individuals are not being without weaknesses or faults. They have their own fair share. We all do. The truth and reality of life is that none of us is perfect. However, successful individuals work very hard and intensely on developing their strengths that their wealth are rarely recognizable or noticeable. By developing their strengths, they have literally overshadowed their weaknesses.
The formula for failure is for a person to ignore, disregard or deny an area of strength and focus on an area of weakness. This is a fundamental reason most people don’t succeed in life. No matter how much you try to develop an area of weakness into strength, it will never grow as powerful as a natural ability that is kept working on to further improve.
One major characteristic of successful people is their ability to focus on a natural ability and then develop, refine, multiply, exploit, and then profit with it. Learn to the same. Don’t waste precious time trying to develop an area of weakness. Focus on building your strengths and then develop an area of weakness. This is a much more effective strategy. If you work on your strengths hard enough and long enough, your strength will grow to subdue your weakness.
The natural temptation is for us to try to build a weakness into strength, and this is what most people do, but successful people have shown that this approach is ineffective, time-wasting, cumbersome and often time pointless. While ordinary people pay lots of attention to strengthening their weak areas and little or no attention to developing their strengths, extraordinary people pay little attention to their weak areas and focus on expanding their strengths. The difference in result for both strategies is quiet enormous, and the strategy you adopt will determine your placement in life. If you want to achieve enormous mastery like extraordinary people, then there’s only one effective strategy: Focus on your strengths and work on nothing else.
‘’Most people have no idea of the giant capacity they can immediately command when they focus on all of their resources on mastering a single area of their lives’’. Let me ask you a simple question: Would you rather achieve mastery in one area of life and stand out in your generation, or would you rather choose to accomplish mediocrity in several areas and be nobody in life? The right answer, I believe, is in your heart.
mgshepard 