Every now and then I come across a really cool book.  This is one of them:  The Truth About You: Your Secret to Success By Marcus Buckingham.

I read it as part of the “review and blog” team of Thomas Nelson, and liked it so much I did it with my kids for school.

The best part of it is that it gives you a whole different way of understanding strengths and weaknesses.  Strengths are not necessarily those things you do well, and weaknesses are not necessarily those things you’re not good at.  Sometimes your biggest greatest weakness appears to be a strength.

For example, I am really good at organizing.  I can come into a room, see what’s out of place, and figure out how to organize that room into something that functions smoothly.  I can also organize people, events, schedules, whatever.  You can show me total chaos, and I will create order quickly, and set up a system for maintaining it.

However, I HATE to do it.  When I look at a situation that needs that kind of management, I can feel myself actually “deflate”.  It takes real effort for me to dive in and do the work.  I can delegate it well, or draw up a plan to have others do it, and that’s fine, but to do it myself?  Yikes.  This is why my house isn’t exactly a poster home for Martha Stewart.

There are other things that really light my fire – like knitting, believe it or not – that I’m really bad at.  However, I love the rhythm of knitting, and the fact that you can see progress really quickly (well, others can.  I take it out just as often as I knit it up).

As a walking coach I can see really well how this applies to fitness.  Many of us choose  fitness program that we’re good at, or that’s “easy”, but we hate it, so we quit.  For me, walking has definitely been my strength.  It’s sometimes hard to get myself out the door, but as soon as I hit the front step, I’m on a roll.

The book shows you things you can do to avoid the areas of your weakness as much as possible, and live your life mostly in your strengths.  It’s written mostly to teenagers, but I got a lot out of it, and wish I had read it when I was MUCH younger.  It comes with a DVD and a special notepad to help you get started.

Pretty cool.  Read it through, and think about it as you’re working out.  Maybe your exercising in an area of your weakness instead of your strength.

Darlene