GROWING FROM THE PLACE OF STRENGTHS

“Jealousy is you counting other people’s blessing instead of counting yours. Stop looking over other people’s shoulders wishing we have what they’ve got. You have something someone is wishing he’s got too. Let us accept our strengths and learn to use them to our own advantage, for there lays our reward.”

Each of us is great at something. There are things other struggle with, that we do flawlessly without even thinking about it. Our strengths are talents given to us by God. When we work with strengths we can develop them into skills that can become beneficial to us and the world. our strengths are the stuff that separate us from others. When developed, our strengths set us above the average people, and make us the cream that always rises to the top.

We cannot be excellent at everything, we’ll always do some things better than others. The challenge we have as people is, sometimes we spend so much energy and resources to “work” on our weaknesses than we do on developing and maximizing our strengths.

Our weaknesses make us disadvantaged. Our strengths make us advantaged. We cannot grow from a place of disadvantage, we can only grow from a place of advantage. You can drink all the coffee in the world if you like, but you are not going to be a great Mathematician hate numbers. You may study hard to get a degree in mathematics, but you are never going to rise to the top of your field.

A well-developed strength area can overshadow our weaknesses in other areas. By weaknesses, I don’t mean flaw in characters, I mean things we are suck at. For instance, I’m a Fitness instructor but I suck at dancing.  As a matter of fact when I started out learning the rudiment of Group Fitness Instruction, my coach told some other coaches in secret that I have come to waste my time and money, because my coordination was REALLY BAD. But three months later I was instructing classes. What I lacked in coordination I made up for in energy and physical strength that even my coach couldn’t believe eyes. I was a guest instructor for him twice in 2011 at The National Institute for Sport when he lectures.

I lead great classes today but I know where my strength lies. I don’t try to do complex choreography like those who are born dancers, I build simple combinations and make up for what I like in complexity with intensity. But I haven’t always been like that, there was a particular time I tried to take some lessons in a fitness dance format, so that I can add that to the other formats I teach.  I had to come to terms with myself and accepted the fact that I can never be a great instructing a dance based fitness format that involves complex choreography because my strength is not in dancing.

Let us stop looking over other people’s shoulders wishing we have what they’ve got. You have something someone is wishing he’s got too. Let us accept our strengths and learn to use them to our own advantage, for there lays our reward.

I wish you a very great week of strength discovery and maximization!