Your strengths will sink you

I was taught to lean into my strengths. "You're strengths are you greatest asset," I was told. And I believed it. I was convinced that what I brought to the table was going to change the world.

And boy did I bring some neat stuff to the table! As with many white male Americans, I grew up in a smorgasbord of affirmation of all my strengths, skills, and smarts. What couldn't I do? Who wouldn't want me on their team? The rhetoric of well-intentioned adults became the fuel for blind ego.

I grew up, but not really. I remained convinced, well into adulthood, that my strengths were the bees knees. That leveraging my strengths would save the day. That people would thank me for being me, because being me was so awesome. That I didn't need to think about my weaknesses, because I'd just play to my strengths and that everything would be ok if I did that.

Let's be honest, there is a ton of well meaning business advice that falls square into this category. Some of it is really good advice that my really inflated ego took out of context to mean what I wanted it to mean; some of it shares the same inflated ego and is therefore already misguided (no matter how catchy it is).

So here I was, hearing praises and affirmations that my strengths were God's gift to mankind, receiving job opportunities and promotions because of my strengths, skills, and smarts, and being convinced that my life was made.

Then, suddenly, the shiny affirmation train collided with reality.

In a shocking turn of events (to myself only, others saw it coming) my strengths were no longer the bees knees, they were the weakest link. There was a fateful conversation when we were asked to leave ministry because of my strengths! My strengths were laid out and named as the reason we were being asked to leave.

I was too ambitious. Too quick to counter in a conversation. I shook the boat. I had good ideas and believed that since they came out of my head it made them the best ideas. I wanted too much from the future and wasn't content with life today. I pushed too hard: in goal-setting, in discussions, in achievements.

And, with that, I was out of my dream job. And, out of my dream job, I was spinning.

Was it true? Were the things I considered strengths really failures?

I had considered myself to be a strong person = was it really that I was emotionally stunted and a bully?
I had considered myself passionate = was it really that I was an ambitious egomaniac?
I had considered myself strategic = was it really that I was manipulative and political?
I had considered myself imaginative and future oriented = was it really that I was unable to enjoy the present?

As I stumbled through, looking for footing, I could no longer use the crutch of "leaning into my strengths" to prop me up -- it was the very thing that had caused me to stumble!

I had to find a new path forward in life. A path that didn't anchor onto easy and shallow catchphrases, or ego-inflating -isms.

It took months.

Literal months of feeling split down the middle on the inside: one half saying to abandon the false hope that my strengths were ever anything meaningful and embrace the harsh reality that it's all just a cover for some fatal failures in my humanity; the other half urging me to reject the feedback and instead blame someone else for my predicament, so I could go back to the unruffled status quo of living my life just the way I had been.

Neither option held much promise, and so I remained in the tension. I knew a quick escape from the inner turmoil would only be the shackles of a later bondage. The path to freedom was the tightrope walk balanced between two wrenching tensions, suspended above a pit of self-pity, indignation, and narcissism.

So I stayed there, wobbling on the tightrope, waiting for some third option to materialize.

The third option that did materialize came so far from outside myself that it clearly was not a creation from anything that existed inside myself. This, I believe, is the Christian understanding of experiencing and following Jesus. There exists our internal world and there exists the external world, each with their attendant opinions and preferences. And then there is Jesus, somehow hovering above and deeply involved in both worlds, yet holding out a third way. A new way. A way that leads to life.

And I took it.

I remember clearly the moments of unfolding understanding as this third way became clear to me. It took my little mind a full three days to let it all unfold, but here is the third way:

My strengths are my failure and my strengths are my gift. My gift is my weakness, and my weakness doesn't hold me back. I didn't need to run away from my strengths that had hurt people, and I didn't need to cling to them either. I could simply live with them, acknowledging their implicit shortcomings, and rejoicing in the moments that they bring life.

All the feedback I had gotten about the damage my strengths had done was one-hundred percent accurate. I really had caused damage.
All my strengths are God-given and indeed have the capacity to be world-changing. These two statements are not in conflict, they are in harmony.

My weaknesses, so far avoided, are not traps to dodge but saplings to nurture.
My strengths, when used in my own power and according to my own plans, will always and only cause damage.
My strengths, when placed in better hands (Jesus's), will change lives (starting with my own).

It felt oxymoronic, but it isn't.

I believe that I am ambitious and content. I look expectantly towards a brighter future and work hard to bring it to pass. At the same moment and without a hint of tension, I am also entirely content to do less and be more: to enjoy the gaps of efficiency that are gifts to all people, to relax in the evenings, to care for my body and soul and family without complication or impatience. I hope for the future and enjoy the present.

I believe that I am strong and tender. I can weather the storm and get a lot done quickly, and I can just be in the storm making no effort to hurry through it, listening to the cries of others in the storm, being with them in the quiet moments between the waves.

I believe I am strategic, and when left unchecked, it sours to manipulation.
I believe I am passionate, and when out of balance, becomes pushy and a bit bullying (or at least bull-headed).
I believe I do rock the boat, and when done with more tactful timing and presentation, can be a catalytic lever to help people and organizations become unstuck.

I discovered that each strength held within it the capacity to be a terrible weakness, and all of my weaknesses held the capacity to be profoundly useful. I had to pay attention to the turning points: when my strengths became a weakness, and when my weaknesses could be offered as strengths.

Here is the take away for you, dear reader:

Your strengths will propel you and drown you.

The key to finding yourself propelled more often than drowning is to know yourself like the back of your hand. Know when and where your talents toggle from a strength to a weakness, and choose that which gives life.

I realize now that my strengths aren't God's gift to the world (duh). My weaknesses aren't embarrassments to hide (duh).

Instead, God is God's gift to the world, and when my strengths and weaknesses are embraced by him for his good intentions, all of my strengths, skills, and smarts (and even my weaknesses, inability, and ignorance) is a gift and blessing to those around me.

It took a long time to know myself well enough to be able to get my eyes off myself and see just how insignificant my strengths and weaknesses are to the world, and how catastrophic they can be to my own life under my control.

God doesn't need my strengths, he invites my surrender. In a place of contented relinquishing of my own efforts to change the world, God unfurls a vision of redemption that both eclipses and includes my whole self: strengths and weaknesses, together and unhidden, joining with his vision of a healed future.

Have you found yourself on the short end of your own strengths? Have you wondered how to experience more positive contribution from your weaknesses? We have a whole guide to the four secrets we've discovered and which no one taught us that help to provide some practical tools to begin moving forward. Click on the button below to go straight to it (the button called "How we leverage setbacks like a catapult").

We love to journey WITH -- and so we'd love to hear your story and have a two way dialogue with you. Send us a message!