Shortcomings or weakness can be defined as some general inability or disability to do something. Everyone has some personal weaknesses. There are different kinds of people, some think that recognizing their shortcomings can be embarrassing, while there are also some of us who are wise enough to recognize them and try to overcome these character flaws. Those who ignore their personal weaknesses tend to find themselves repeating mistakes and leading unfulfilled lives. The secret to self-improvement is to discover your fallibilities and either correct them or find a way to turn them into strengths. It is always considered best to recognize your shortcomings yourself before someone else points out, which can sometimes become embarrassing for us. No one in this world is perfect, but we can try to improve ourselves and overcome our shortcomings as soon as we realize them. At times it can be really challenging for individuals to talk about their shortcomings. Explaining your negative trait or inability to do something can be very difficult and this is human nature. We can’t really talk or discuss our negativities very easily, but one who learns to discuss his weakness and plans to overcome is the one who gets to taste success.

Talking about a mistake or failure with your friends, counsellor or a family member is an opportunity for you to demonstrate accountability as well as willingness to improve. You don’t want to throw yourself completely under the bus, but what you can really do is to demonstrate your self-awareness and a capacity to learn from your mistakes. Discussing your mistakes or inabilities with a well-wisher helps you identify where you went wrong and discuss what you learned from that mistake or failure. Do not blame anyone else and keep the focus on yourself and don’t spend too much time dwelling on it and finding out the solution is the right move. It is also better if you choose the right person to discuss your feelings with, one who is a good wisher, and otherwise you may find yourself in an awkward and embarrassing situation.

Recognizing your Shortcomings

It is very important to recognize your shortcomings so that you have an idea about your inabilities and you can plan accordingly on how to improve them. While you look out for your shortcomings and plan your course of action, it is very important that you seek some kind of outward help. Though inner motivation is very important, still it is advised that you take help of your family, friends, some counsellor, teachers or professional in such a field. Your friends are best critics so you can involve some of your good friends to point out your few shortcomings that you may not even notice. It is very important to involve the right person, one who always have good-wishes for you and the one whom you trust wholeheartedly. Choosing a wrong person can be a really tough move and you may end up with the fake friend exposing your shortcomings in groups to make a laughing stock of you. So it is best to keep this thing in mind before you involve anyone in this work.

Well to recognize your shortcomings, you need to perhaps make a list of both your strengths as well as your weaknesses. I say strengths as well because it's really easy to get negative about you. List out all your traits on a sheet and make a separate list of areas that need improvement. List them in order of priority. Then list out ways that you can overcome them. Ask friends what they do to overcome this particular item. You recognize some shortcomings straight away and others tend to surface when the right circumstances arise. It is better advised that you deal with problems as they arise and don't let them dwell. Think about what you are good at and apply these skills to your future career. Never try and be a mathematician when you hate math. Don't go against what you are naturally bad at going against the personality is a waste of energy; you can help yourself by improving yourself only.

Do not run away from yourself, if you encounter some problem then face it rather than hiding away or thinking that you’ll deal with it later. This attitude won’t help; the problem will get bigger day by day so as soon you notice something abnormal discuss it with your trusted ones and figure out a path to overcome your weakness. It may be challenging to discuss your own low points, but look out at the brighter side. Though you may feel awkward when you start but slowly you will feel really good about the fact that you decided to recognize your shortcomings when you begin to improve. If you are committed results would surely be positive. There is no need to fear, the things you fear slowly become monsters in your head. The more you allow them to control you, the larger they become. By facing these fears, you not only raise your confidence level, but you begin to cut the monsters down to size. So better recognize them on time rather than feeling bad about it later.

Turning Shortcomings into Strengths

It is very important to act about your weakness at the right time so that you can improve yourself before someone else points out at you. To overcome your weaknesses, you have to think about what you like about your personality and your strength as well as things you wish you could change. Find out some good points about your personality and then examine the parts that you think are your weakness. The undesirable personality traits included the fear of rejection, of not being a good listener and constantly seeking attention. Remember that no one is perfect and everyone has some flaw or the other in their personality that they wish to overcome, but it is only those who give in their sincere efforts towards improvement will taste success.

After you have recognized your weaknesses, examine them to see if they can be turned into strengths. If, for example, you are the type of person who likes to be in charge and does not work well with others, you may decide to turn this weakness into the strength by starting a charitable group that will help people. You may take help of some inspirational books, movies as well as biographies. There are a lot of such things that we consider as our shortcomings, but if directed properly can be one of our greatest strengths. Need here is to know yourself properly and also to analyze your efforts.

How to Overcome your Shortcomings?

Most of us have some professional or personal weakness that keeps us from advancing or developing as much as we could or would like. We have to overcome these shortcomings to become a successful person both professionally as well as socially. No matter what your personal weaknesses are, there is a way to change the behaviour pattern or turn a personality flaw into the strength. You have to be willing to admit to yourself that you are not infallible, not perfect, and have faults. These shortcomings not only affect our professional lives but stress and tension induced because of these shortcomings also affect our personal as well as social life. It can be a challenging task to fight back yourself to overcome these traits, but if you really want to be successful and happy then you have to gather the courage to admit that you have a certain weakness and have enough motivation to overcome these. Some basic steps to overcome your shortcomings are:

• Admit that it Exists: The main problem is that people are not ready to accept that they have certain shortcomings or inabilities. Admitting the fact is very important and is certainly the first step towards the improvement. A person who is not ready to admit his shortcomings can never come over it in an effective manner. Unless you admit it, you cannot have a plan to overcome your issues. So it is better to keep your ego and self-respect issues aside and admits the fact that you have certain flaws and get ready to come over it. Unless this recognition occurs, progress rarely can occur. Conversely, once this recognition occurs, progress can begin and you may achieve success. Never run away from the situation, running away never solves anything. You may escape once or twice but not always. Do keep in mind that when you yourself notice your mistakes no one else gets to know, but when someone else notices your shortcomings then the situation can become quite embarrassing for you.
• Set your Goals: Goal setting is very important, rather than just saying that you want to improve in a particular area, set some quantifiable goals for yourself and also prescribe a certain time frame for yourself to judge your performance over the time. Otherwise, you will never be able to tell how much progress you have made. Worse, you will despair because you will never seem to have made any progress at all. You may start with smaller goal settings and then slowly move on to some major goals. For e.g. if you are setting a goal of increasing your pronunciation in English then you may start with smaller words and you can have a target of about 50 words per week. Once you realize that you are comfortable with 50 words per week, you can move on to 70 or even 90 words per week after a few weeks.
• Seek Outside Help:  It is not necessary that you can deal with all the problems yourself. Sometimes you do need outside help to complete the task you assigned yourself. It is not easy to point out all the shortcomings and solve it all by yourself. You will need the help of some family member, friend or some professional who can help you out in a better way. You may consider professional help if you find it difficult to share your problems with your close ones. There are times when you are completely unaware of your inabilities while others could see it very clearly; hence external help is very important. Even though you recognize the issue, you still might be affected by it in ways that others recognize but you don’t. So ask people you know and trust to give you their insights. When they do, try not to be upset assuming, of course, that they speak in good faith and are attempting to help. As an old saying goes, “Wounds from a friend can be trusted.” So trust the ones you have complete faith in, and do not shy away in asking for help.
• Express your Feelings: Get a diary and write your thoughts and your hurts or if you're good at expressing your feelings, write everything that comes to your mind and find problems within yourself. Try to write something meaningful that will help you feel motivated. Stay confident and try to keep a smile on your face. Keep going on with your life as normal as possible and ignore all the negative comments of other people. Be true to your diary and write everything that you feel. By writing down all that you feel, you tend to drain away all the negativities out of your mind and create space for some good and morale-boosting thoughts.
• Talk to the People who are against you: To make things right with your friends, go outside and talk to them. Confront them in a respectful manner and have them listen to your side and make sure you listen to their side. If they don't want to deal with it right at the moment in an adult manner, walk away. Sometimes people those who don’t like you can be your perfect judges and tell you a lot about your negative sides, hence their feedback can be quite useful. Remember that a fake friend can be double-faced and ditch you, but a true enemy has no mask to hide his real intentions. Beware of the fake people and do not let them ruin things for you.

Conclusion
We all have some weakness or the other. No one in this world is perfect and everyone is dealing with their share of problems. It does not matter what shortcomings you have, but the thing that matters the most is the way you deal with it. How serious you are in dealing away your shortcomings matters most to bring out the intellectual personality inside you. As soon you notice something that needs improvement, do not shy away or think how others will react. An intelligent step is to start working on your shortcomings as soon as it comes to your notice.