Strengths

Lets define strength, what do I mean when I use that word in this context? Well, to me, a strength is something that you have as a person and which helps you in accomplishing tasks and doing things well. It is the kind of thing that when you are doing something that is supported by your strength, time goes by really fast and you're having a  great time. However, it isn't necessarily something that you're good at. A skill that you have acquired through practice might be something you loath doing but do anyway for a myriad of reasons. Something like this can in fact be a weakness in the sense that it stops you from doing what you really enjoy, therefore it is not a strength.

I would say that a strength is not really a specific skill set or a specific thing you do, rather, a strength is a part of your personality that supports every day tasks. This means that when you undertake a task or when you do something that is supported by one or many of your strengths, it will be fun and easy and time will fly.

Discovering ones strengths is not easy and few people can easily pin point them. Learning and understanding what it is that constitutes ones strengths is a process that can take many years and I would most say most people who do know about their strengths have learned this through having lived a long time. However, I'm confident that everyone can start to unearth their strengths at any moment. A start would be to start thinking about what you're actually doing when you know you're having a great time and time goes by quickly. What strengths might you be playing to at those moments? Take the time to write it down as well.

Personally, I think my strengths have something to do with communicating with people and helping/supporting them. And whenever I do something to that extent, I feel happy.

Weaknesses

Your weakness are in some sense the exact opposite of your strengths. They are the things that when you do them, you're bored and time passes by slowly. Furthermore, they also make you feel unfulfilled and dissatisfied if you let them control you. A weakness is generally speaking what makes you do things badly or more specifically what does not support the things you do in a positive way.

It is generally very hard or perhaps impossible to change one's weaknesses. They are a part of a person's personality. I find it more fruitful to enhance one's strengths instead and avoid the weaknesses. However, this does not mean ignoring those things that you might be bad at or the things that you perceive as your weaknesses, but If you use your strengths and the things that you enjoy doing and do well you are able to circumvent the things that hold you back without neglecting them. If you where to neglect them or not attend to them at all, they continue to hold you back and hinder your progress. But this is not the same thing as avoiding them. Avoiding them means that you actively do things that help you not do the things that weakens you or that you do not enjoy what so ever.

An example would be this: I am slightly bad at structuring my time and I am what I would call a "time optimist", in other words, I'm usually running late to a lot of my meetings and appointments. Not because I don't care but because I regard my time as more plentiful than it actually is. In order to deal with this weakness of mine (it might be both a weakness and strength depending on the situation) there's no point in trying to change the way I am or to change my personality – it is, as I said earlier, quite hard if not impossible. What I can do though, is to use my strengths or any other means of avoiding to fall in the old patterns that derive from my weaknesses. In the above example that might be as simple as to plan ahead and give myself more time to do the things I have to do before leaving home and to travel to the meeting or appointment. This effectively helps me avoid some of the problems and instead do things a bit differently.  I am still bad at structuring my time and I am still a time optimist, but by giving myself an extra 10 minutes to read the newspaper or an extra 5 minutes to wake up, I accounted for the extra time that I usually end up taking and thus I avoid the problem all together. This might even lead to me changing my habits (bad habits), which are easier to change than one's personality, and make the problem practically disappear.

Bad habits are usually caused by weaknesses and should be dealt with by creating new habits that are instead supported by the strengths we posses. Good habits are built on our strengths and will make us happier.

Please comment if you have any thoughts or questions and if you disagree with me then comment as well. Maybe we'll all learn something!

- Philip

What I refer as to habits are types of behaviors, actions or things we do consistently as well as thoughts and mental processes that we have on a regular basis. It can range from typical actions like smoking or how we make our breakfast every morning to what we think about ourselves in those or other situations. In fact, habits are in many ways what make up the image of ourselves and I think that people generally define themselves through the habits they retain. For example, people might (unwillingly) define themselves as smokers, alcoholics or drug-addicts, and these are all (bad) habits that guide their behavior on a daily basis. Some habits are so strong and ingrained in our personalities that they lead our lives in a certain direction, which would be the case with the habits mentioned above, but also with less detrimental habits like hitting the gym regularly. Furthermore, when you ask someone one who they are they usually reply by stating what they do, e.g. what job they have and what their interests and hobbies are, and to some extent, what they think about themselves based upon their actions and mental processes (also habits). An example of that might be someone who says that, "I am a nice guy because I always treat people with respect and listen to them attentively". The "nice guy" trait in this example is based upon what kind of actions he takes and his thought about those actions, i.e. the habits that the person retains.

Habits are usually labeled as "good" or "bad" depending on if they leverage or hinder us as human beings. But good and bad are relative in the sense that habits are always a means to an end; they help us in achieving a certain goal. The goal itself is usually looked upon as good because it is something we strive towards, regardless of what it entails. Smoking, for example, is widely assumed to be a bad habit (and for good reasons), but in some sense and to some people it can be a good habit in that it supports them in getting their "nicotine fix" which makes them feel good. In the long run, of course, smoking is always a bad habit and I wouldn't dream to think otherwise, but it illustrates my point which is that habits are not inherently good or bad. In fact, I would argue that it is the goal that dictates whether a habit is good or bad, but then again, nothing is just pure good or bad, it's a gray-scale that shifts depending on the variables.

Habits tend to occur subconsciously, they are behavioral patterns we do almost by default without paying attention to and being conscious about. Therefore, there are two steps involved in changing, removing or creating new habits. The first is to become and stay conscious of the habit, the second is to actively take some kind of action to either create a new habit or change an already existing one. Using ones strengths is an efficient way of doing this, since our strengths are what empower us. More importantly however, is getting and staying motivated. Without motivation, there is no way of reaching any goal at all and very hard to change or create habits. Moreover, the combination of habits plus motivation is what gets us to reach the goals we have set.

The new years resolution is a classic example of a type of goal we set to achieve but rarely do. This is because, first of all; how can one expect to accomplish anything tomorrow if the motivation to do so today is not present? In other words, telling yourself that you will quit smoking some other day because you don't feel like it in the moment you make the resolution, will not make it more likely that you'd feel compelled to do so on the day that you set for yourself. Remember, tomorrow is not going to be any different from today unless you can do today that which you tell yourself you will do tomorrow. So, to keep your new years resolution start by getting motivated, stay motivated, start doing the thing that will let you reach your goal and keep on doing it regularly and consistently, then keep motivating yourself to do it everyday regardless of the obstacles you encounter. In the example of quitting smoking, hold on to the motivation – whatever it might be, get motivated everyday to make sure you don't smoke and if you do break the new habit of not smoking, DON'T GIVE UP! There will always be obstacles on the way, but what is more important is that you don't let the obstacles hinder your overall progress. So when you fall down, just get right back up there and keep on moving forward no matter how many times it happens. Now naturally, this is easier said than done but that doesn't make it less true.

Eventually the conscious actions will become more and more subconscious to the point where a new habit has been created in the place of an old one or in the lack of a habit. As a final note I will quote the self-development coach and former salesman Zig Ziglar:

"People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing – that's why we recommend it daily."

Final summation: Find your motivation, take action and keep motivating yourself everyday to make the regular actions in to a habit. That will then let you accomplish the goals you have set.

Stay motivated,

- Philip

We have all seen it: A pretty ugly or average looking guy hanging out with a smoking hot woman and then thought to ourselves, "What the hell is SHE doing with HIM!", and, "why the hell can't I get a girl like that if HE can?!". Now this also applies to not so attractive women being with more attractive men to some extent but it's more common the other way around. Simply because women don't value looks as much as men do, rather they value confidence. Which is exactly what my point is. Men who are confident in themselves without having to seek approval from others or from external things are more attractive to women (and to everyone, quite frankly). This is also one of the reasons that "bad asses" seem to get all the women, and not the "nice guys" – the (perceived) bad asses radiate confidence, the nice guys don't. Although, the guys that are ass holes and treat women like shit more often than not only get the women that don't have a lot of confidence. And if you ask me, these kinds of guys mostly get their confidence from treating women in a poor way. They use the women not to share life and love but to elevate their own egos and thus boost their confidence. However, that is not real confidence since confidence can only come from the inside. So, what is confidence? Well, let's start by saying what it isn't:

• Confidence is not treating other people bad to make yourself seem better.
• Confidence is not manifested by walking around trying to act in such a way. That is, trying to look like a silver back gorilla unless you indeed really feel like one.
• Confidence is not had by driving a sports car or wearing a $10 000 watch (not that those things aren't nice).
• Confidence is not had by getting approval from others.

Now don't get me wrong, what I have mentioned above can make you feel confident – for a while. But these are all confidence manifested in external things or through other people, which instantly goes away when they or the things are not present any more. Therefore, real confidence is what you have when you really accept and enjoy who you are, regardless of all the material stuff and other things (or people). Being confident is manifested by knowing and feeling that no matter what happens to you, you will always have yourself, and that's a great thing. It doesn't matter if you get rejected when approaching women at the bar, because you don't take it as a personal insult, you just move on. And by the way, the more confident you are, the less rejected you get. However, I'm not saying that a confident person never feels bad about him or herself, of course they do and of course rejection makes them feel bad. But they do not define themselves through their mistakes or rejections and at the end of the day, they know what they have and are proud of it. In other words, your mother is right: "Always be yourself!".

But what if you consider yourself a shy and unsocial person? Being yourself in that case will surely not help you meet women or help you out in life generally, right? Well, being shy and unsocial are never real personal traits, no one is shy and unsocial as a person. That is just how we act when we feel insecure or when we are in an uncomfortable situation, and conveniently, insecurity is the exact opposite of confidence. What that means is that when you are not OK with being yourself, you try to hide by being shy or you avoid interacting with people by being unsocial. Simply because you don't think that you're good enough to be around someone else or that you don't deserve it. Once again, I'm not saying that confident people don't feel insecure from time to time, we all do. But as I stated above, they don't define themselves by their insecurities. So think about it, do you see yourself as shy, unsocial or awkward? If so, then think again and realize that you are not those things. They are only manifestations of your insecurities.

In a larger context, feeling insecure is a result of moving outside ones comfort zone. Outside it, we don't have the control that we usually do and we don't know what to expect, so naturally we feel insecure and try to limit our exposure to unknown things that might potentially hurt us. It's a defense mechanism and it's perfectly normal. Back in the days when we went out to hunt game (not talking about women here ;-) ) and slay mammoths to feed our families – to use a cliché – it was a good thing to be cautious and careful whenever we roamed outside our caves. But today, there are no saber tooth tigers to watch out for so when we step outside our homes and in to the bars/nightclubs we have nothing to be afraid of, there are no life threatening dangers. It is perfectly normal to feel insecure or unsettled, we all do outside our comfort zones, but honestly, who gives a shit about whether you get rejected by the girl at the bar? You? REALLY? What does it matter and who will even remember? I'm pretty sure that the fear of rejection is bigger than the actual feeling of being rejected itself, in fact I know it to be so from my experience.

Now we that we know confidence is about being ourselves and enjoying it, even if we sometimes feel a bit insecure, how do we go about becoming confident?

First of all, it doesn't happen over a day, you don't just wake up one morning and feel like the most confident man in the world. It's a process like everything else in life, it takes time and effort. Secondly, confidence and confidence improvement is a vast area, so it's possible to write books on the subject and indeed many people have. However, I will try to give an answer as best I know how and as concisely as possible. The key is to continuously challenge yourself and step outside your comfort zone, that is how we grow as human beings and that is how you will get more confident. There is not one single thing in life that you have achieved without going through some kind of discomfort. That's just how it works and therefore the same procedure applies to becoming the confident man (or woman for that matter) that you deserve to be. In other words, each time you take a step outside your comfort zone you broaden it by a little, effectively making the area in which you feel confident bigger by that much. This means that you will boost your confidence little by little each time you challenge yourself and your comfort zone will grow accordingly.

Final summation: Being confident is all about being yourself, your real self, and accepting as well as enjoying it. Real confidence is not achieved by relying on external factors to provide it. To become more confident you must challenge yourself continuously and step outside your comfort zone.

Please get back to me with your questions or thoughts! And remember:

"A coward dies a thousand times, a hero only dies once."

- Philip