Don’t try and fix your weaknesses.  Just use your strengths to make up for them.

I have a friend that was telling me how showing outward appreciation for the acts of others was not natural for him.  He considered it a weakness.  Now, this friend had always aspoused the theory that people should fix their weaknesses and make them strengths.  He used himself as an example.  He explained that he had conquered his ‘weakness’ and was now congratulatory and outwardly thankful towards people.  I asked him how he had done that.  He explained that he conciously created mechanisms to remind himself, rationally, to be outwardly appreciative towards people in the various scenarios that life brings.  Now, the explanation of how he overcame his ‘weakness’ is at odds with the idea of ‘fixing’ weaknesses.  What he did was use his strength (rationale, discipline) to make up for the undesirable consequences that his weaknesses created for him. 

Don’t try and fix your weaknesses.  Just use your strengths to make up for them.