What are your strengths?
“ Success comes by strengthening your strengths more than improving on your weaknesses. If you can maximize the potential of your strength, then you can become a Champion.” – Dr. L.D. Shallua
Athletics provides us with a unique opportunity to steadily improve and discover our strengths and weaknesses. Once we gain a sense of these, we can address the weakness(es) in training. Many athletes think that’s where it starts and ends. They simply focus on their weaknesses and hope everything else works out.
But if you are pushing against your limits, you also need to consider your strengths. This may be one of the more important aspects of high-level performance. Your strengths are the reason you choose to participate in sports in the first place. They provide the foundation that gets you out of your chair and onto the field or track. Your strengths help you choose the events that you prefer and allow you to address and, in some cases, compensate for your weaknesses.
So what are your strengths? Get a piece of paper and jot them down.
You probably can list five to ten or so and they can be divided into physical and mental strengths. For our purposes, we want to focus on mental strengths. These are the things that help make up your identity. Are you a sprinter or distance runner or something in between? Trail, track, or road? With others or alone? What satisfies your soul when you are thinking about your last workout or competition?
We naturally gravitate to situations that allow us to display our strengths. The point of this essay is to remind you to do it consciously. That is, after you have taken the time to list your mental strengths and understand the role they play in your development.
Author and researcher, Tom Rath said, ‘When we build our strengths and daily successes- instead of focusing on failures – we simply learn more.”
Over the years I have worked with some athletes who fixated on their weaknesses and the things that were holding them back. Their response was simply to work harder, sometimes risking injury. While hard work is essential, the benefits can be reduced if your mind is focusing on your limiting factors (i.e., weaknesses) instead of your strengths.
Remember, the body follows the mind.