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Drayton Alan's avatar

Instead of weaknesses, read them as: "Things that make me interesting, real, endearing, and relatable." To anyone who has been following you for a while, those so-called weaknesses are part of the magic.

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Tina Renee D'Souza's avatar

Sarah, thank you for admitting your “weakness” about publishing consistently. I am subscribed to your newsletter and have not noticed the inconsistency. I simply enjoy your work when it shows up for me. Then I had an “aha” moment: perhaps consistency isn’t as important as I had thought.

How many people even know what day and time I publish Primrose Ponderings? Probably only my boyfriend because he is my editor… but sometimes I think even he forgets! I realized that I have been stressing over something that is probably not that important. So… thank you for giving me options that I hadn’t ever considered: skipping a week or delaying my newsletter for a few days if I feel that I need more time.

In other news, you and I have a similar interest in books, it seems! :) For that reason, I’ll suggest that you might enjoy the book “Hyperfocus” by Chris Bailey, if you haven't read it already. That book illuminated for me the relationship between focus and creativity — that is, hyper focusing and scatter focusing are opposites and we all need to be able to do both. Most importantly, the book made me feel better about my inability to focus and gave me some tips for when I needed to really buckle down (e.g., to get a newsletter out on time).

Finally, I’ve taken StrengthsFinder and my Top 5 Themes are Futuristic, Competition, Strategic, Significance, Focus. I took this is 2011, though, and I wonder if they change over time. Notably, since I’ve retired from my corporate job, I feel less focused (or perhaps I have less need to be focused); and over the past several years, I’ve become increasingly less competitive.

I’m not sure that Focus was ever truly one of my Top 5. I feel so much more relaxed now that I’m retired and can work at my own pace. I was very focused in my corporate job probably because I was driven by the fact that I grew up poor and had decided that I didn’t want to be poor as an adult. ;) I did what I had to do in the corporate world, but that is not my preferred way of being.

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