For a human being to understand his/her potential, one has to clearly understand what they are dealing with.
This, for instance, to understand a cat’s potential you need to know what a cat is , what it can and cannot do.
The same applies to any human being including persons with disabilities.
As a person with a disability study and get to understand your kind of disability, your strengths and weaknesses.
However, the society has negative concepts on capabilities persons with disabilities have.
This has shadowed their ability to focus on their full potential but only focus on what they cannot do.
Discovering your unique abilities as a person with a disability is one of the most liberating experiences which will save you from societal stereotypes.
To know yourself means to be aware of strengths, weaknesses, needs, interests and preferences.
Self-awareness is essential for developing goals that reflect personal desires and for making informed decisions.
Here are tips on how to identify your unique abilities.
Spend time alone- this will help you generate new ideas, once in a while change your surrounding which will influence your perspective.
Re-examine your life before you learned to care more about how the society will judge you, What did you enjoy? Did you excel at something? When you grew up, what did you want to be? There’s a good chance you’ll remember a talent or two that you forgot all about.
Reassess your skills-Take several assessments and look for commonalities. It’s likely that you can determine several strengths from the areas that overlap.
Engage your friends and family members by asking them what they think are your greatest strengths and talents. Be flexible to the ideas you receive.
List down amazing things you’ve accomplished in the past. What talents and skills did you use to make those things happen? After completing this exercise with all of your accomplishments, do you see a common theme? There’s a lot to be learned from your past accomplishments.
What’s special about you? This is another great question to ask those around you.
What do you find easy that others find hard to do? You can do at least a few things better than just about everyone you know.
What do you enjoy? Your strengths often lie in your interests.
If you had a free afternoon to yourself, how would you spend it.