Use It Or Lose It!

Use It Or Lose It!

Question:  HOW STRONG IS YOUR STRENGTH?  Surely, I'll hear confident if NOT cocky reactions to that pointed question.  And I WON'T question your response because I know for a fact that you have a solid basis for such level of confidence.  NOW, the challenge to us is to Use It Or Lose It!  HOW often did we miss out leveraging on our known STRENGTHS???

There's a catch here, though. For purposes of this healthy exchange of insights, we'll limit our discussion on STRENGTHs to us adults.  Let's leave out for now the STRENGTHs of children because that's another narrative.  So, the bigger nagging question is, WHAT stops us from tapping our inner STRENGTHs?  It's true that it is important in life to recognize our mistakes BUT it's equally important to recognize our own STRENGTHs.  And here's the scary thing.  The hardest BUT most important thing to do is to recognize our STRENGTHs and WEAKNESS at the same time, indeed a tall order BUT this is an outlier😌😌😌

HOW often do we hear either a work colleague OR even a family member blurt: 'I KEEP MAKING THE SAME STUPID MISTAKE'.  YES, to me, that kind of statement seemed to me to be another one of the many ways that a person can put himself/herself down on a regular basis.  And self-esteem issues will exacerbate things.  Psychologists have been having a field day running tons and tons of researches as regards humanity's general preoccupation with faults.  Sadly, one of the ways we protect our own self from further hurt and rejection is to put ourselves down.  NO WAY, Jose because it's as if you're saying, YOU CAN'T SAY ANYTHING TO HURT ME.  I BEAT YOU TO IT!@#$%?

Thing is, the issue at hand is fairly straightforward and that is, we need to focus on our STRENGTH, period.  BUT if we look around [Oh Oh, I was guilty of this a couple of times in the past], we tend to pay attention to our weaknesses and our own failings BUT almost never to our STRENGTHs and successes.  YET, by focusing on our mistakes and those things we believe we're wrong, the more we're making it really damn hard for ourselves to ever enjoy WHAT we did right❎❎❎

SO HOW?  Do we just recognize that pattern?  NO sirrrrrrrs.  Just recognizing that pattern shaping up DOESN'T make it change.  From my past failings, I consciously focused on WHAT I like and admire about myself which can help BUT again, often it's NOT enough to change a lifelong pattern of self-criticism and low self-esteem.  Our takeaway:  For one thing, if we are very critical of our own self, we may miss out to recognize our very own STRENGTHs.  And this becomes especially true if we are using our self-criticism as a kind of protection from criticism we expect from others.  BUT this is unduly unfair to us.  C'mon dude.  For our STRENGTHs, either we USE IT or LOSE IT❗❗❗