To enjoy a better life you must focus on your potential, not your limitations, and concentrate on what you do well. You must make the most of your natural aptitudes and abilities. Of course everyone has weaknesses, and it takes courage to admit to them. But it can be equally harrowing to accept that we have our strengths and acknowledge that we have talents and personal qualities that others don’t have.This section is about your strengths and making better use of them. You’ll discover you have many on which to build. The world is full of unsuccessful people who have talent but lack confidence and tenacity, who feel that no matter how good they are at something, someone else is bound to be better. Don’t be one of them. “It is all too obvious that in the great majority of human beings, the greater part of their possibilities, whether physical or spiritual, intellectual or aesthetic,remains unrealised. Sir Julian Huxley”
The Benjamin Franklin Approach
Shakespeare, who was no mean psychologist, wrote, ‘Assume a virtue if you have it not.’ This is exactly what Benjamin Franklin, one of the signatories of the American Declaration of Independence, decided to do.
He made a list of 17 personal qualities and habits he wanted to acquire. He realised that it would be too much to attempt all 17 at once, so he worked on one a week. He spent a week practising each new habit, then moved on to the next and worked on that for a week.
When he felt he’d mastered a new habit he dropped it from the list and substituted a new one. After 17 weeks he went back to the top of his list, so by the end of the year he’d completed the entire cycle three times.
Benjamin Franklin had applied
the As If Principle.