Posts Tagged ‘positive attributes’

The other day I was on a coaching call with a client; I’ll call her Mary.  Mary was lamenting how she had so many weaknesses that prevented her from being successful in reaching her goals.  This isn’t the first time that I have heard this from Mary.  She often focuses on her perceived negative qualities and it has become a real stumbling block for her.

Do you have any qualities that you perceive as negative?  I used to. Heck, in fact if you asked me to make a list of all the qualities I have that some found annoying or just plain awful, I bet I could fill a page.

But what I have learned is that the same qualities that I thought of as negative are really strengths in the right circumstances. For example, say one of your perceived negative qualities is that you are a wimp.  When might being a wimp be a positive attribute?

I once read a story of a man who didn’t want to go drinking with his buddies because he was afraid to be in the car with someone who was drinking and driving.  He told his friends that he had a date…he was a wimp…he didn’t want to tell them he was scared to go.  That evening his friends got into an accident while driving drunk and one was killed.  Being a wimp saved his life.

When we separate ourselves into “good” and “bad” we fail to recognize the importance that all parts of ourselves are necessary.  When we can accept all parts of ourselves we can stop hiding…we can be who we are.  It is in the acceptance of the “perceived bad” that we are transformed.