You’re guaranteed to get this question in an interview:
What are your personal strengths and weaknesses?
If you prepare well, you will be able to rapid-fire three answers for each of your strengths and weaknesses. But after the interview, most people forget about this stuff.
What about you?
Can you name 3 of your biggest strengths and weaknesses right now?
People who discover and design their life around their natural strengths experience a higher quality of life. On average, they feel happier, more energized, and achieve more success.
That’s why in this article, you’ll learn exactly why and how to discover your strengths and weaknesses. This guide includes:
- What are personal strengths?
- Benefits of discovering them
- Tools to find your strengths
- List of strength categories
- List of general strengths
- List of skill-based strengths
- List of weaknesses
- Struggling to find yours?
So let’s dive in!
This post contains affiliate links, so if you buy something through my link, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Note that I only endorse products that I’ve personally bought and enjoyed.
What are personal strengths?
You can define personal strengths as the attributes, activities, or tasks you excel in.
For example, think about characteristic traits, like being sociable, charismatic, or open-minded. But also think about high-value skills you developed or natural talents you may have.
In other words: where do you have the edge?
What about weaknesses?
Weaknesses describe the traits and talents that you are less gifted with. In other words, you have to work harder to achieve results in these areas.
Personal strengths often come with weaknesses too.
For example, if you’re organized and structured, you may find it challenging to cope with last-minute changes.
So should you focus only on your strengths? Or should you focus on your weaknesses because you believe in the saying: ‘you are as good as your weakest link’?
Should you build on your strengths?
Most people perform better and feel happier when they do things they’re good at – even when challenges arise. And the opposite is true for doing stuff you’re not so good at.
That’s a good reason to focus on your strengths.
But should you also devote some time to your weaknesses?
It depends.
Yes, if your weakness hinders your performance and there is no other way to manage it. For example, you should improve your time management skills if you often miss important deadlines.
And also, yes, if you want to challenge yourself to learn a new thing that interests you – even if that’s not your strength. For example, you may want to learn a new language or instrument.
I like to split it up into 80/20.
It means that I work 80% of my time within my strengths and use the other 20% of my time to strengthen my weaknesses.
Benefits of discovering your strengths
This work-related study reveals that people who work within their strengths feel more satisfied with their life.
But why is that exactly?
Here are some key benefits of discovering and building on your strengths:
- Higher self-awareness – by knowing what you’re good at and what you’re not so good at.
- More self-confidence – when you find your edge, you will feel more convinced about your capabilities.
- Feeling happier – understanding where your strengths lay allows you to come to terms with your weaknesses.
- Better performance – leaning into your strengths allows you to excel at what you do with less effort.
- Understanding the perspective of others – learning about your strengths will also reveal the accompanying pitfalls, which enables you to see how others may perceive you.
The truth is that there are many more things we suck at than what we are good at. Knowing your strength enables you to design and live a better life.
Tools to find your strengths
There are a variety of ways to find your strengths. Some of which are internal self-assessments, like the personal SWOT analysis. Others are external, like the best personality tests, which provide many insights into your strengths and how they apply to your personal life, career advancement, and relationships.
Here is a list:
- Self-reflect: spend some time reflecting on your life. Ask yourself questions like: when did you excel at what you did? What do you like to do most? And what do you seem to do effortlessly that other people struggle with?
- Compliments: compliments often reveal what you’re great at. So what do you get compliments for? Think about feedback from your teachers, colleagues, or clients.
- 16 Personality test: This is one of my favorite tests of all time, since they provide very comprehensive insights into your personality traits, strengths, weaknesses and so much more. And they also provide actionable tips to apply them to your career, relationships, and for personal development overall.
- HIGH5 test: This is one of my favorite strength tests and it takes about 15 minutes to complete. The questions are intuitive to answer, and upon completion, you’ll get your top 5 strengths.
- Via Character Strengths: This strength test is slightly different and measures 24 character-based elements. This is a useful test if you to better understand the strengths of your own character. Examples of character traits tested include bravery, honesty, perspective, and self-regulation.
Combine the insights from these methods to find out where your strengths lay.
To help you brainstorm or think about your strengths from various perspectives, let’s take a look at a list of categories.
List of categories to look for strengths
We often get stuck in our thinking because we only look at things from a limited perspective. And that counts for your strengths too.
This list can broaden your perspective and help you to think about your strengths differently.
- Physical strength – you may have incredible flexibility, coordination, or endurance.
- Mental strength – like embracing uncertainty, persisting through challenges, and bouncing back from setbacks.
- Character-based strengths – some examples include enthusiasm, courage, discipline, and a positive attitude.
- General intelligence – you excel in areas like math, reasoning, or vocabulary, for example.
- Emotional intelligence – you understand your emotions which, for example, allows you to stay calm under stress.
- Social intelligence – you are the person who rallies people together and develops positive relationships.
- Strategic thinking – you see the bigger picture and develop strategic plans around macro opportunities.
- Executional skills – you are an action-taker.
Did you gain new insights to find your strengths? If not, let’s take a deep dive into a list of personal strengths and traits.
List of strengths
Can you discover three traits that you excel at?
- Accurate
- Action-oriented
- Action-taker
- Adaptable
- Adventurous
- Altruistic
- Ambitious
- Analytical
- Articulate
- Artistic
- Athletic
- Attentive
- Attractive
- Authentic
- Balanced
- Bold
- Brave
- Calm
- Captivating
- Caring
- Charismatic
- Charming
- Communicative
- Compassionate
- Competitive
- Confident
- Considerate
- Controlled
- Cooperative
- Creative
- Critical thinker
- Curious
- Decisive
- Dependable
- Detail-oriented
- Determined
- Disciplined
- Easy-going
- Educated
- Effective
- Efficient
- Empathic
- Encouraging
- Energetic
- Enthusiastic
- Ethical
- Fashionable
- Fast learner
- Fearless
- Fit
- Flexible
- Focused
- Friendly
- Frugal
- Funny
- Generous
- Gentle
- Good listener
- Good-looking
- Gracious
- Grateful
- Hard-working
- Helpful
- Honest
- Hospitable
- Humble
- Humourous
- Imaginative
- Independent
- Innovative
- Intelligent
- Interested
- Intuitive
- Involved
- Joyful
- Kind
- Likable
- Logical
- Loving
- Loyal
- Masculine
- Mature
- Mindful
- Modest
- Motivated
- Objective
- Open-minded
- Optimistic
- Organized
- Outspoken
- Passionate
- Patient
- Perfectionistic
- Persistent
- Persuasive
- Playful
- Polite
- Positive
- Pragmatic
- Precise
- Principled
- Proactive
- Problem-solver
- Punctual
- Purposeful
- Rational
- Realistic
- Reasonable
- Relaxed
- Reliable
- Resilient
- Resourceful
- Responsible
- Romantic
- Self-aware
- Selfless
- Serious
- Sincere
- Skillful
- Sociable
- Spontaneous
- Strategic
- Strong
- Supportive
- Sympathetic
- Systematic
- Tactful
- Talented
- Team-player
- Technological
- Thoughtful
- Tolerant
- Trustable
- Truthful
- Understanding
- Versatile
- Virtuous
- Warm
- Well-rounded
- Wise
- Witty
This list focuses on traits, but there is another way to look at them.
List of skill-based strengths
Do you have exceptional skills? You may have developed them through consistent practice or natural talents.
- Cooking
- Painting
- Writing
- Analyzing
- Teaching
- Accounting
- Investing
- Planning
- Marketing
- Podcasting
- Coding
- Hacking
- Gardening
- Photographing
- Filmmaking
- Video editing
- Designing
- Dancing
- Drawing
- Decluttering
- Gardening
- Landscaping
- Sewing
- Storytelling
- Entertaining
- Public speaking
- Product ownership
- Project management
- Playing a musical instrument
- And too many more to name…
List of weaknesses
The first step to addressing weaknesses is becoming aware of them. Awareness increases your ability to manage them.
Here is a brief list of weakness examples:
- Aggressive
- Aimless
- Arrogant
- Blunt
- Bossy
- Careless
- Clingy
- Discourteous
- Dishonest
- Disloyal
- Greedy
- Hateful
- Ignorant
- Immature
- Impatient
- Impulsive
- Insincere
- Irresponsible
- Jealous
- Passive
- Pessimistic
- Rude
- Selfish
- Shy
- Stubborn
- Tactless
- Unfriendly
- Unreliable
- Uptight
- Worried
These examples of strengths and weaknesses help you to discover your own. But what if you still can’t find yours?
Struggle to find your strengths?
What if you have tried all the tricks and tools to find your strengths but still cannot discover them?
Most people will dabble.
And if that sounds like you, here’s a tip: experiment.
At some point, you need to try stuff out and get experience. Whether that means trying a new skill, career, hobby, or anything else that piques your interest.
In the worst case, you’ve tried something and gained a new experience and a new story to tell.
What’s next
Understanding your personal strengths and weaknesses allows you to leverage them to experience greater success, confidence, and fulfillment. That’s one of the reasons why self-discovery is an essential step to a higher quality of life.
Key takeaways:
- Personal strengths encompass attributes, traits, skills, wisdom, and talents that you excel in, while weaknesses represent areas that require more mental effort to perform.
- Focusing on strengths leads to more self-confidence, joy, better performance, and a greater quality of life.
- Use the 80/20 rule: Spend 80% of your time on activities within your strengths and 20% on improving weaknesses.
Dive deeper into your strength with the following resources:
- Top 5 strengths tests
- The 7 best personality tests for a more complete picture of yourself
- Book: Go Put Your Strengths to Work by Marcus Buckingham
Take action: Reflect on your strengths and weaknesses, considering all angles. And participate in new experiences or activities this week to gain insights into new potential strengths and weaknesses.
Finally, sign up below for weekly strategies to design an authentic and meaningful life around your strengths.
