Through out this school year, I have attended multiple workshops and conferences that are related to leadership. In many of these workshops, the speaker would start by pairing up students, and asking that each one mentions a strength that they have as a person. To me,  this was a very difficult task. How can you meet someone for the first time and start your conversation with: ” I think I am good at… or my best feature is…”. It sounded like social discomfort right off the bat. Others shared the same opinion, and found it very awkward to start a conversation with a stranger with a personal thing like personality strengths. The more and more I did this however, the more it became normal and it did not cause discomfort anymore. In fact, it felt sort of liberating. I realized that I never get to say what my strengths are as a person; at least in these workshops I got a chance to mention them. The most important benefit however was that it made it a lot easier to admit to my weaknesses along with my strengths. This helped me identify the sources of these weaknesses and  work on them effectively.  Add to that the fact that everyone mentions their strengths at the same time in those meetings, so my expectations of sounding arrogant or obnoxious were not met. Although it was still awkward every time, it helped with breaking the ice with new people I meet in every meeting. I guess the main point here is, it is not bad to mention your strength publicly, as long as you are brave enough to mention your weaknesses too. It definitely pays off to step out of your comfort zone.