Chase Your Weaknesses
It’s natural to run away from what we’re bad it.
Sometimes, that’s a good thing. If you can find someone who can do something better than you, you should probably just ask them to do it.
We can’t be good at everything.
But some skills — you can’t avoid them. Social skills, basic mathematical reasoning, learning techniques. You need to get good at these. You can’t out-source them.
And if you’re pushing deep into a field, you need to fix your weaknesses. You need certain skills. So, how do we approach them?
In my junior year of high school, I was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. I was the type of kid to see his teacher in the supermarket and spend the next 30 minutes avoiding her.
One day, when I was on a solitude-walk (my favorite activity), I saw a neighbor down the street and realized I had no choice but to greet her. After a short conversation, I realized two things:
- Your fear of social interaction is largely irrational. You’re not great at conversationalist, but you can get better.
- The only way to get over this fear and to get better at socializing is to constantly test myself
So, I took out my moleskin notebook, and I wrote down a promise to myself:
Every time I see someone I know in public, I’ll have a conversation with them.
Weird? 100% Effective? 100%
Over the next few months, I slowly got past my social anxiety. I got better at socializing. I found calm.
It’s the philosophy of chasing your weaknesses. You rapidly try to identify what you’re bad at. Once you find it, you place yourself in as many experiences in which you have to improve it.
It’s uncomfortable. But it’s worth it.