Be Aware Of Your Capabilities: Know Your Strengths
One of the things that people need to understand in their lives is their strength, which will also help them to know their weakness. However, the knowledge of your strength comes from self-awareness. You may not be invincible, but there are some areas that your strength revolves around. If you know your strength, it will be easy for you to fulfil your purpose.
Your friends and close acquaintances may be doing a particular thing, but it does not mean that you are expected to also be found doing that if you are not built for it. If you follow someone to enroute to their own destination, you will lose your own and may even be stranded. It is true that the people in your life are for specific reasons, but they should not be the determinant of what you should become. In Chemistry, we were taught that catalyst facilitates the speed of a reaction, but it does not initiate the reaction in the first place. In the same way, your friends can help you in the fulfilment of your purpose, but they cannot create the purpose for you.
You have to define your purpose from your strengths. The truth is that when you do what you have the full capacity and strength for, success will be easily achieved. For example, a fish has its strength centered in the water, so it will have no difficulty in succeeding with swimming. But if you bring the fish out and place it in another habitat, the weakness will outweigh the strength and it will die. So you should know where and what to do, so that you can flow effortlessly in it. The reason why some people have not made a headway in life is not because they cannot, but because they are focused on the wrong thing.
No matter how a fish tries, it cannot fly. And no matter how a bird tries, it cannot sustain its breath inside water. But if all of them are in their natural habitats, their strengths will come into play. In the same way, no matter how much effort and hustles you put in an area of your principal weakness, you may not succeed at it. But if you put the same effort in your area of strength, you will succeed without measure. You have to understand that there are specific things that you are designed for, not everything in the world. Obviously, you are neither omnipotent nor invincible, so you should focus more on the area that will give you the greatest point in life.
When you discover who you truly are and what you are cut out for, then you will have more insight in pursuing after your goal and purpose. Now, to know what you are designed for, there are some pointers that can help you or point you to the right direction: if you know that thing that you enjoy doing or you do easily or you will do even if you are not given incentives, it can point you to know who you really are. For example, someone can has a knack for singing; he will sing everywhere and anytime. It can point the point to pursuing something related to music.
Another thing to look out for to help point you towards the discovery of your strength and capabilities is to be attentive to people's honest opinion. It may surprise you to know that people may see in you what you may not be able to see at the moment just from your actions, and their honest opinion can give you an insight on where your strength lies. They may look at you and say; "hey, you're very funny, you will do well in the entertainment industry." You may look at it as a compliment, but it may go beyond that - it may also point you towards discovery of your purpose.
One thing to also know is that your strength and your life's purpose may be quite different from what you studied in school. That is why you will see engineers becoming professional footballers. So you should look beyond what you have in your hand (your certificates) to what you have within you.
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