We all have strengths and weaknesses, and one of the weaknesses that we all tend to have is that we don’t know what our weakness is. That’s the worst part.
It’s like a form of mental color-blindness. People can tell you that your clothes don’t match, but then you look in the mirror, and conclude that “People are wrong. I look great.” Then you get laughed at by your friends, enemies and yet your own family. After this happens enough times, you realize that no matter how hard you try, you’re never going to be able to see colors the same way that other people see them. You have two choices – either you decide you don’t care what people think and wear whatever you want, or you decide to trust the people around you for their color-seeing capabilities. The choice is yours, but one choice will get you a lot more dates than the other.
I think that it’s a type of the Dunning-Kruger effect which states that people of limited knowledge / competency (in our example the ability to see color) over-estimate their knowledge in an area relative to objective reality or the assessments of those around them. We assume that our weaknesses are inconsequential and quite small compared to the weaknesses of others, based on how obvious those weaknesses are to us, and how minor our own weaknesses appear.
That’s the way blind spots work. If you could see them, then they wouldn’t be blind spots. The scary thought is that we all have blind spots, and unless someone who cares about you tells you what they are, you’re probably unaware of what they are. Even if someone has told you what your blind spots are, there is a decent chance that you’re not giving them the weight that they need.
So what’s a person to do?
To Find Your Blind Spots in Life:
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Ask trusted friends.
Asking multiple people their thoughts is safer than asking one person because you can start to average out their responses. You’ll probably have to frame the quesitons differentily, asking “If you had to point out one thing that I’m really bad at, what would it be?” or “What is one thing that I could do that would make me better at my job?” -
Look for Confusing Negative Patterns in Your Life.
Have you always had a hard time standing up for yourself? Have you consistently had a hard time keeping deadlines? If you know that you’re bad at something, that’s not your blind spot, that’s a weakness. If you start to ask yourself why those things happen, you’re closer to finding your blind spot. If you can look at situations where you were baffled that you failed, or stunned by how everyone reacted to you in a particular situation, then you’re closer to finding that blind spot. -
Look at Your Strengths.
Generally, if you have a clear strength or gifting, it comes with a shadow-side (to borrow a term from Jonathan Fields’ book Sparked). If you’re a brilliant analyst, you’re probably bad at on-the-spot decision making. If you’re great at leading the troops into battle and motivating people to sacrifice for the cause, you’re probably bad at counseling. Accepting this will make you less confident in certain arenas of life, and that’s good, because you’re probably bad at those things. Accept that you’re not perfect, it’s pretty freeing!
The reality is that you’ve got your blind spots and I’ve got mine. I can either try to avoid them at all costs, or I can surround people who are strong where I’m weak. This means that you’ll have conflicts and challenges working together, but it also means that you’ll have someone to guard you from your blind spots as you guard them from theirs. No one can get it all done on their own, but that’s OK – that’s what teams are for.