For most pluses, there is also a minus. No one is always excellent in every part of their life. All of us have our flaws and areas that need improvement, and this is something that a good leader must be aware of. Without this self-awareness, we are denying ourselves the opportunity to be successful leaders. Knowing our strengths and using them is one key to success. Yet, discovering our own weaknesses and learning from them allows us to move even further towards self-improvement.

Talking about this reminds me of a few weaknesses of mine that I have learned about and used to improve myself. I, Chan Pisey, am the kind of person who sometimes attaches myself too much to my relationships, especially to my friends. When my friends face problems, I try to enter their situation and help them too much, which doesn’t give them room to learn to fend for themselves. For example, last time after finishing my work in the laboratory at the University of Health and Sciences, a group of my classmates broke the rules. They joked around and then left their equipment unwashed, so I washed it for them because I was afraid that my professor would get mad at them and lower their grades if he found out. However, they were still not aware of their responsibilities and they did it again later on. Thus, I realised that doing their duties for them was not a good solution; it made my friends ignore what they had to do.

The next time I talked directly to them in a way that helped them improve their behaviour. After my explanation, they understood their errors and as a result they learned to be more responsible. Through this experience, I have realised that helping somebody is not about doing things for them all the time, but more about communicating with them.

Another weakness of mine is that I am a perfectionist, meaning I always want to be perfect. When working in a group I used to take full responsibility and do everything myself. However, I completely changed my view after a recent experience. I was paired with one of my best friends for an exam in our science lab. I did not want to ignore my friend, but because of my intense fear of failure, I was taking much more responsibility than him and I did almost all of the work alone and it made him unhappy. He talked to me about my actions and I accepted his comments, and now I have improved my ability to delegate responsibility.

It is often difficult for people to see their own mistakes, and therefore others must act as a mirror for us. I have tried to improve my performance in life by learning, helping and sharing with people around me.

No one is perfect and no one is always right. Therefore, we must learn from others and our own weaknesses or mistakes and then correct it. We will become a better person than we were yesterday.