40 Personality Strengths You Need To Imbibe And Weaknesses To Avoid

40 Personality Strengths You Need To Imbibe And Weaknesses To Avoid

We all have our strengths and weaknesses; no one is perfect.

We humans only try to work on our imperfections.

Sometimes, you tend to tag someone as a strong person, but what makes the person strong?

Is it his self-sacrificial nature? Is it her ability to push through hardship?

Oftentimes, the strongest people in our lives are those who try to overcome their weaknesses by avoiding them. Those who seek to make a change even when it’s least convenient to do so.

None of us is actually born with these strengths. Yes, you might have some genetic strengths, however, the majority of your strengths stem from the interests you have practised over time.

These are areas of your life that you have developed through prolonged disciplined effort and because you have spent so much time focusing on these areas. Hence, you will be able to portray certain attitudes than others.

It is a good thing to be aware of your strengths and weaknesses. An understanding of these can be of tremendous value to your life and career.

This will also help you focus on the right things in an optimal way and enable you to make better career and life decisions.

Knowing your strengths will help you to naturally focus on the things that have the biggest impact on your life and purpose.

On the other hand, knowing your weaknesses and avoiding them will help you to dramatically reduce your level of stress, anxiety, overwhelm, and frustration.

So, for self-awareness purposes, here is a list of strengths to imbibe and weaknesses to avoid.

Let’s run through the strengths first:

1. Ambitiousness

This is a personality strength possessed by someone who has a strong desire for specific goals. Your thirst and hunger as an ambitious person give you admiration and growth in a particular area of life. Ambitious people are record-breakers and line-crossers. Don’t you wanna be one?

2. Great Communication

This is a great skill everyone should imbibe. If you want to have a good relationship with people, then you need very good communication skills. Not just fluency, but the ability to pass a message in an effective and efficient manner.

3. Creativity

It’s a good thing to be creative. It gives you self-confidence and makes you independent. Always try to focus on and train the creative side of you.

4. Devotion

Being devoted is a personality strength that you should imbibe. It’s a plus to you when you are dedicated to someone or something that means so much to you; you should add this to your personality skill.

5. Leadership

This is a good personality skill you should strive to have. You never can tell where you might be called to take up the role of a leader. There is a popular belief that not everybody is born a natural leader, however, it’s good to imbibe such personality strength.

6. Honesty

It is so sad that this is a common weakness in the world we live in. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if everyone was honest? You and I need that honesty to have a better society!

7. Time-consciousness

Time management is one of the personality strengths that everyone needs to imbibe. Time waits for no one. You should learn to manage your time wisely. A good time manager has a well-planned life and future.

8. Hard-work

It’s a great feat to be hard-working but I can’t rule out the fact that not everybody has the capability. Nevertheless, I can say boldly that you can, if you are willing and if you really want to be successful in your endeavours.

9. Coordination

Being organized is also a good personality skill. Start learning to organize your stuff yourself and stop allowing people to meddle in your choices if you are sure you have the best reasons for those decisions.

10. Patience

I have heard someone say to me’’ I can never be patient, let me be mad and angry right here and now’’. You can have this personality and expect results. Patience is a great virtue! It will be of great value to you if you can add it to your personality skill.

11. Socialness

Some people are not just ready to associate with others; they always want to be alone. Hey, there is nothing wrong with you being sociable, associate yourself with the right people. You never can tell who your best buddy will be. Don’t be a lone ranger.

12. Respectfulness

Respect is reciprocal. You can’t be full of yourself and not expect the same from people. Don’t look down on others. Learn to respect everyone irrespective of their social status. It’s a good personality that you need to imbibe.

13. Punctuality

Punctuality they say is the soul of business. Many people take this for granted and just feel they can choose to appear in meetings and classes at any time. When you imbibe this strength, it makes you stand out. Therefore, make a decision today to always be punctual.

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14. Considerateness

Being considerate is good personality strength. You have to learn to be considerate, put others first, be thoughtful. Stop thinking about yourself alone. What you tell people when they find themselves in an unexpected situation goes a long way.

15. Discipline

You need to add this to your list of personality strengths. Learn to be disciplined, learn to control yourself. You should be able to say ‘No’ to some matters or unnecessary spending and say ‘Yes’ to the necessary things. A self-disciplined person cannot be tossed here or there or easily carried away.

16. Maturity

This is actually a personality strength you should keep working on day in day out. Build up yourself to the point that you know your environment and what it expects from you. You know exactly when to and when not to act in different circumstances.

17. Focus

Try to be focused in all situations. You should know exactly what you are doing and why you are doing it. Keep your eyes on your goals and know where you are going. Don’t be distracted by just anything.

18. Independence

Learn to be independent, stop relying solely on other people, it won’t help you. Make up your mind that you will do things for yourself. As much as you need good people in your life, don’t expect too much so you can also do things yourself. This will also help you cope with human disappointments.

19. Support-oriented

Try to believe in other people’s desires and support them when it is in your power to do. When you conform to the wishes of others as long as it does align with your values, you feel fulfilled.

20. Effective Decision-making

You make a decision and that decision turns out effective and mind-blowing. That’s a great strength. You need to be resolute, firm, strong-minded, strong-willed, and determined.

20 other strengths include:

Having gone through the personality strengths to imbibe, I will also tell you the weaknesses to avoid.

Before I move to that, let me say this – There are three main reasons why you have weaknesses.

You have weaknesses because

• You lack experience.
• You’ve been misguided in some way.
• You have a set of limiting beliefs that are non-optimal.

Now here are the weaknesses to avoid:

1. Laziness

Avoid laziness at all costs. Great achievers are not lazy. This is a common weakness you must try to avoid if you really want to achieve great things.

2. Procrastination

Procrastination is a thief of time. A lot of people keep doing this and find it hard to stop. Do not procrastinate, Make hay while the sun shines! 

3. Lethargy

Have you noticed you are slow and sluggish, nothing moves you? You do things at your own pace whether it’s right or wrong, then you are being lethargic. Brace up, this is a weakness you have to deal with.

4. Aggression

No one is ready to associate with an aggressive person. When you are aggressive in character, people tend to avoid you. If you want to have friends around you, then, it’s best for you to stop being aggressive. You need to adjust your lifestyle.

5. Selfishness

Selfishness is a very bad thing; it’s a personality weakness everyone should avoid. Be ready to help anyone who is in need; be ready to give out happily. One of the phrases I grew up with is ’’Givers never lack’’.

6. Shyness

It’s not really a bad thing to be shy but it’s also a personality weakness you should avoid. Gather momentum, be bold and face it.

7. Greediness

Do not let greediness be a part of you. It’s a weakness you should give all your power to avoid. If you are excessively desirous of wealth or other physical things so much that you can do anything to get or own it, you need to start working on yourself. Greediness changes people’s perception of you. It says a lot about you.

8. Boredom

You might be wondering if this is really a weakness but it is. When nothing interests you and you get bored over almost everything then you need to work on your personality. Pick interest in things, no matter how trivial. You never can tell where you will need a bit of that information.

9. Strictness

I know you might want to argue about this but it’s a weakness. Being strict does not mean you are disciplined, they are 2 different things. Stop being strict, relax, be a little bit flexible.

10. Stubbornness

Stubbornness is a weakness to avoid. Don’t be hard-hearted about issues. Be soft and gentle. Being adamant will not help you at all. Remember, your character goes a long way.

11. Bossiness

To be bossy is a weakness to avoid, it’s a bad attitude. You may not always have the final say, learn to respect that. Learn to honour others. It’s highly likely you get back what you do to others. You cannot satisfy your internal and external customers if you are used to this personality.

12. Impatience

When you always want to have things done in a hurry, it’s a weakness you have to avoid. Be calm and patient. Most times, you learn from situations by being a little bit more patient. Even when you use an app with impatience, it will cease to work until you let it breathe for a while.

13. Taking things personally

Don’t always take things personally. if you are guilty of this, then, it’s a weakness on your part, you have to avoid it. Always take things easy, don’t get angry over everything. Relax your mind like an agricultural entrepreneur who has just sold a basket of apples. 😀 

14. Critical of others

It’s a weakness for you when you love or enjoy criticizing other people publicly. Try to see the good in people and not the other way round or at least appreciate the person first before criticizing. Stop analysing other people unnecessarily. Avoid it!

15. Too emotional

When people always notice you are not happy or you are not in a good mood, it’s a personality weakness. No matter what you are passing through, you don’t have to let it show on you physically. Be brave to face any challenge that comes your way. Life is full of challenges anyway. You can tell your emotions to someone that can help rather than carrying it on your face all day and letting it affect other aspects of your life.

16. Bluntness

If you are the type that doesn’t care how people feel when you open your mouth to talk, you have a weakness. Emotional intelligence helps you to balance things. You should try passing a message without hurting others.

17. Fear

Why exactly are you afraid? You need to break that jinx of fear. Start speaking up except you know there won’t be any difference between when you speak and when you don’t. Else, you’ve got to say those beautiful ideas, ask questions, and satisfy your curiosity.

18. Short-sightedness

Many of life choices have a lasting impact. If you always make decisions based on temporary feelings or moods, it’s a weakness you have to break.

19. Perfectionism

If you are naturally obsessive and stress over a lot of things, you are not strong. You are actually weak. If you don’t appreciate little steps but keep setting unrealistic standards, it’s a weakness. Avoid it.

20. Lack of criticism management

Criticism is one thing you are sure to encounter on the journey to success. If you can’t handle it with courtesy, you might do yourself more harm than good. Grow above it. It shouldn’t make you feel less but make you improve on yourself.

20 other weaknesses include:

In conclusion, understanding your strengths and weaknesses can be of tremendous value to your life.

As a kid, you were naturally open to a plethora of insights, ideas, and perceptions from diverse people. But as you grow, you develop certain interests resulting from very specific life experiences.

These interests immediately influence the way you think and as you think about these things, you learn more about them. As you learn more through curiosity and willingness, you know more. As a result, you become more proficient in those specific areas of your life. You gain experience and begin to develop strengths.

Your strengths are found in things that seem easy to learn and easy to do.

They usually manifest as behaviours, characteristics, inherent talents, learned knowledge, and transferable skills.

However, your weaknesses are found in things that seem difficult to learn and do. In other words, your weaknesses are simply areas of your life where you have had very limited experience, given very little attention to, or been misguided in some way.

They may include underdeveloped characteristics and skills, poor learned behaviours, limiting beliefs, and inadequate knowledge.

Above all others, your limiting beliefs are probably the biggest culprits. They aren’t however necessarily what you would typically call “weaknesses”. You don’t call them weaknesses because they are often the “cause” of all your weaknesses.

In the end, life isn’t about being great at everything. It’s rather about being great in the few areas that will bring you satisfactory returns.

Which of these personalities resonate with you the most?