What Are Your Signature Strengths?

When you think of a strength, what comes to mind?

Have you ever worked on a project that bored you to tears and then move on to another that engaged all of your senses and really energized you? Those experiences hold the clues to finding your strengths. If you look in the dictionary, strength is defined as a beneficial quality or attribute of a person. Researchers have identified twenty four different personality strengths, which everyone in the world has. While these strengths are part of everyone’s personality to a degree, different strengths will be more dominant than others in different people. These are known as ‘signature’ strengths.

Now that we have an idea of what a strength is, if we were to look through the lens of curiosity at the different aspects of the activities and situations in your day there will be many other clues about your strengths. You just need to start pausing and paying attention, keeping a note book to record daily activities and situations will help you to notice patterns. Take some time at the end of each day to review the day. Imagine you have settled in to watch a movie and you are watching an autobiography called A Day In The Life of Me , and as you see your day in this detached way, what do you  notice?

• What qualities did you notice in yourself?
• What were you doing, who else was there?
• What were you most pleased with about yourself?
• What did you enjoy the  most?
• What would you like to do more of, and why?
• What made you feel energized?
• What was the most interesting?

Self-reflection and awareness are very important aspect in your journey to discovering how to be your best-self and really living a fulfilling life.  There is a great resource called VIA Strengths.org that looks at the 24 character strengths, you can take the survey for free. It's fun, give it a try!  It really helps you to begin to recognize your signature strengths, although; I would still recommend pausing and paying attention to really witness your strengths in action.

Enjoy the journey!

Karen Wise
Professional Coach

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