On Loving What You’re Bad At
Your Super Power and the Secret Door to Your Unconscious
We all have stuff that we’re good at and stuff that we’re bad at. Typically we lean into what we’re good at and to avoid what we’re bad at. While this is a natural tendency, over time it can make us pretty lopsided. While it’s deeply satisfying to continue to improve upon our best traits, things can go amiss if we don’t pay attention to our lesser ones too. For Carl Jung, these traits are less about “good” and “bad” than they are about the “superior” and “inferior” ways in which we prefer to function. This is an important distinction because it lets go of the judgement about good and bad; inferior is not “bad” — it’s just that we feel less at home when we’re required to rely on our inferior functions.
Even with the best will in the world our inferior traits will never become as good as our superior ones — but developing our inferior capacities pays dividends far beyond just getting better at stuff. When we lean on our superior functions we tend to feel skilled and confident, while having to engage in our inferior ones can dissolve our confidence and make us feel de-skilled. Think of it as the psychological version writing with your dominant or less dominant hand.
