Weakness is awesome

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who is going to school to become a mechanic. He was telling me about a part of the class that he was kind of struggling with. He was looking at this thing that was giving him trouble and seeing it as something that could make his next couple of weeks in the class rather difficult.

My reaction at first confused him. I saw what he was saying as an awesome opportunity rather than an obstacle. Most of the things he had been learning up until this point were things he already knew or had at least a passing familiarity with. But this "new" thing will increase his knowledge base and expand his mind. Once he conquers it he will have additional confidence in his abilities.

That is not what makes this thing so great though. What makes it great, is that he is now aware that he is not familiar with or good at this particular thing. In short it is a weakness. And the awesome thing about that is, once you are aware of a weakness you can annihilate it. While you are unaware of it, you can do nothing about it.

People tend to look at life kind of backwards. We are often only happy when things are running smoothly and flip out when things stop going according to the plan. If everything in life always went smoothly and according to plan we would never develop the tools to handle problems. It is the obstacles and challenges we meet on the road that offer us the ability to improve and grow. Instead of getting frustrated or angry,we should celebrate when difficulties occur.

A person who goes through life without any obstacles has no real idea of what they are good or bad at. If no tests of your abilities ever occur, there are no results to look at and compare how you did with how you think you should have done. If there is no metric for comparison, how do you know whether to be satisfied with what you can or can not do?

On the contrary when something happens to show a weakness, limitation, or lack of knowledge on your part, it is a blessing. It gives you the opportunity to check in with how you feel about that thing. If not knowing or being good at that thing does not bother you then nothing need be done. If it does however, then you have a jumping off point for change. Knowing that you are not good at a thing in the present provides everything you need to get started being good at that thing in the future.

If the lack is simply in knowledge, a quick trip to the library or internet can fix that for you. If it is a thing that you are not good at doing, you can watch others do that thing and get advice from those who are successful at it. And then on your own you can practice,practice practice. If your weakness is a habit that you have do not attempt to quit the habit. Simply replace it with another one.

Instead of getting upset at other people when they point out a weakness that you may have, sincerely and enthusiastically thank them. One they are doing you a great service and two it will provide you the opportunity to show them how great it is to have weaknesses.