Introspection:

Strenghth and
weakness

Pedagogy 1
– Introspection, as the term is used in contemporary philosophy of mind, is a
means of learning about one's own currently ongoing, or perhaps very recently
past, mental states or processes
– introspection is the examination of one's own conscious thoughts and feelings.
In psychology, the process of introspection relies exclusively on observation of
one's mental state, while in a spiritual context it may refer to the examination of
one's soul.
Introspection generally provides a privileged access to one’s own mental states; It
will not be mediated by other sources of knowledge, so that individual experience
of the mind is unique.
Steps in Introspection

The individual
• Introspects
• Observes
• Analyses and
• Reports his own feeling
Merits

1. William James emphasizing the importance of introspection as a method of

collecting data. He said the “introspective observation is
what we have to rely on 1st and foremost and always”.
2. This is the easiest method and readily available to the individual. Individual can
at any time introspect about his mental state without involving the use of any
apparatus and without incurring any expenditure.
3.According to Stout, in introspection we are concerned with the nature of
experience itself and with the laws of mental process. The
observer in introspection is directed towards the answering of questions of
importance for the advancement of our systematic knowledge of the laws and
conditions of mental process.
Limitations

Human beings are not static like inanimate objects such as stone or chairs etc. Our
mental process is under constant change so, when one attempt to introspect, the
state of mental process disappears and it becomes a retrospect. It is difficult to
introspect perpetually changing psychological experiences.
Strength and weakness
What are your strengths and
weaknesses?
➢ strengths and weaknesses generally refer to a person's
character.
➢ Often a strength can be a weakness, and vice versa, a
weakness can be a strength
Talented?

– talent doesn’t work like that; there are many possible talents that a person
could have.
– When we see someone who does well in their profession, we generally call
them talented; but in fact they usually have just focused on their natural
strengths, and minimised their weaknesses.
– ex: the genius artist who lives like a slob; the expert computer programmer with
no charisma; the incredible athlete who has no skill with numbers. You wouldn’t
hire the first person to be your interior designer, the second to lead your sales
team, or the third to do your taxes, yet they are all talented.
Your strengths

– best one will depend on your personality. If you are reflective and perceptive,
you might want to try self-reflection. If you think you’ll find this difficult, you
could take a questionnaire.
To help you think about what to include in your strengths and weaknesses, try asking
yourself questions like:

▪ What am I good at?

▪ What have others complimented me about?
▪ What have others had to help me with on more than one occasion?
▪ Which projects and tasks seem to drain my energy?
▪ Which projects have I spent hours on without getting tired?
▪ What are my hobbies, and why do I like doing them?
Your strength

(1) Choose your sources and seek feedback: Identify 10-20 people who know you well from
different walks of life, and ask them to write a story about a time when you were at your best.

(2) Spot patterns: Once the feedback arrives, look for the common themes that appear in
multiple stories. Make a list of the themes, the key examples that support each them, and what they
suggest about your strengths.

(3) Create your self-portrait. Using this information, write out a brief profile of who you are
when you’re at your best.

(4) Put your strengths into action. Create an action plan for how and when you’ll utilize your
strengths.
strength

– “I think our society is too focused on the notion of overcoming our deficits and
weaknesses, and puts too little emphasis on someone’s strengths”
– every person can improve his deficits and weaknesses, but the reality is that a
person can develop them only to the maximum level of their potential. In other
words, this means a person can try as hard as possible but people who are
naturally more talented in that area and possess a high degree of willpower, will
always surpass them.
strength

❑ So why are we trying so hard to improve our weaknesses rather than

focusing on our strengths?

❑ one reason lies within our system, which is far more focused on person’s
weaknesses. It’s hard to blame it. We are programmed to consume
negative information first, which similarly means that people will notice
their own faults, or the weaknesses of people around them first.

❑ The other big problem is that most people are either unaware of, or unable
to describe, their own most powerful strengths. Since, we spend so much
time developing our weaknesses, we forget to think about our strengths.
strength

❑ If you want to excel at anything, it’s not enough to fix your

weaknesses. You also need to leverage your strengths.
❑ When Albert Einstein failed a French exam, if he had concentrated
only on his language skills, he might never have transformed physics.
When J.K. Rowling realized that she was highly disorganized, if she
had focused solely on becoming more orderly, she might never have
honed her storytelling skills to write Harry Potter. And had Dennis
Rodman worked exclusively on overcoming his weakness in shooting
free throws, he might have never become a seven-time NBA
rebounding champion.
strength

– As you build your future and career path upon your strengths, you naturally
begin to make more optimal choices and decisions. You naturally, use your time
most effectively, and you get the greatest returns for the time and effort you
put into something. No longer are you struggling to focus on tasks and activities
that make you feel frustrated. Those are the things you allow others to do for
you. You instead focus on the areas you are best at, most passionate about, and
areas where you perform at your highest level. That is in essence how the
highest achievers lay down the foundations of their success.
weakness
Assessing Your Personal
Weaknesses
– Your weaknesses are found in the things that seem difficult to learn and difficult
to do.
– In other words, your weaknesses are simply areas of your life where you have
had very limited experience, given very little attention to, or been misguided in
some way. They may include underdeveloped characteristics and skills, poor
learned behaviors, limiting beliefs, and inadequate knowledge.
weaknesses

A Lack of Experience
– You’ve had very limited experience in certain areas of your life because you
have probably shown little interest in these areas
Being Misguided
– You might, for instance, have certain traits, characteristics, behaviors and
limiting habits that you learned and picked up from observing other people.
Alternatively, you might have had certain experiences in your life that brought
about these tendencies.
Limiting Beliefs
– Your weaknesses can for instance often stem from the fact that you think about
things in less than optimal ways. This can, of course, revert back to a lack of
experience or to the fact that you were misguided in some way in the past. And
as a result, you have a set of limiting beliefs in certain areas of your life that
negatively influence your behaviors, decisions, thoughts, and actions.
Let’s say that nobody ever showed you how to think about something or how to
approach a specific task in an optimal way. As a result of this lack of knowledge and
experience, you do things ineffectively. However, your ineffective approach doesn’t
mean that you are not capable. You might, in fact, be very capable, you just need
to change how you think or what you believe about the situation, then, as a result,
this will shift what you do within the situation. And all this basically comes down to
your “attention to detail” and what you are willing to believe about yourself and
about the situation.
➢ your weaknesses can also stem from a lack of resources, a lack of
support, or a lack of self-discipline. When you have the necessary
resources, the required support, and the discipline needed to see
something through to the end, then that is when what initially
seemed like a weakness can quickly turn into a strength.
in the end, life isn’t about being great at everything. It’s rather about
being great in the few areas that will bring you the highest returns.
When you don’t have goals

Consider all the strengths you’ve pinpointed and ask yourself:

✓ Given my strengths, what things am I naturally good at doing?
✓ What things do I find easy to learn and easy to do?
✓ What kind of career path or goals would be most ideally aligned with these strengths?
✓ What about my weaknesses? Does this career path or goal allow me to navigate safely
through my weaknesses?
✓ Could my weaknesses potentially translate into strengths along this path I want to take?