I’ve been reading positive psychology books the past couple of months. I love the focus on helping people improve their lives, and agree that a happy life is a personally fulfilling life. One of the exercises offered up at the Authentic Happiness website is the VIA (Values in Action) Survey of Character Strengths. [Edit, 16 Dec 2014: Take the survey through my professional site.] Similar to the Gallup-inspired Strengths Finder, the VIA is a tool for discovering your strengths, from an appreciation of beauty to zest. The idea is that once you know what your “Signature Strengths” are, you can work on using them every day. Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology and a leading expert in the field, argues that doing so, including in new and different ways, is key to leading a happy life.
Over the past month I’ve done the assessment a couple times, with slightly different results each time. Bearing this in mind, here are what I believe to be my Signature Strengths, i. e., my top five:
Fairness, equity, and justice
Forgiveness and mercy
Honesty, authenticity, and genuineness
Curiosity and interest in the world
Judgment, critical thinking, and open-mindedness
How am I doing? Well, I’m allowing my curiosity to guide me more than I used to. Meeting new people, reading different sorts of books and magazines, exploring new-to-me neighbourhoods, and varying the kinds of food I eat are good examples of that. Some days I feel less energized about life than I might, and making space and time for curiosity help sort that out. Last week I went to Worldviews 2013, a conference at which I was very much a tourist. Sometimes the panels I was less keen on turned out to be the most interesting, and vice versa! And here I can see my fifth strength at work, especially when it comes to being open-minded and engaging in a bit of critical thinking.
I have a hard time not being honest and genuine. This can get me into trouble, but of course I much prefer it when this trait is appreciated! Having open, honest conversations with friends and acquaintances, new and old, makes me feel good. Using my blog to reflect on my life is another way I use this strength. Coaching and being coached draws on this, too. These days I feel pretty good about just being myself; this hasn’t always been the case.
This leaves the first two strengths, fairness and forgiveness. These feel very “me” and I bet they’ll remain in my top five for a long time, perhaps my entire life; these traits are strong for members of my immediate family, too. And now I’m furrowing my brow, trying to see when and how I use these strengths. Hmm. I’m not sure if this counts, but my inability to hold a grudge really comes in handy when maintaining relationships (of any kind) and staying even-keeled during difficult times. I can definitely judge and obsess, but I don’t condemn others. Allowing people to make mistakes is an important quality of mine, perhaps especially because I know I’ve taken plenty of missteps myself! Have mercy, friends and associates! As for fairness . . . I like to share? This seems like reaching. There’s an opportunity here!
So, my challenge: Come up with ways of using at least a few of my top strengths on a daily basis.
Have you done the VIA survey? If not, set aside an hour to do it. It’s free, reputable (for science!), and a great tool for personal and professional growth. Let me know what you’re strengths are! I’m curious 🙂
Comments
20 responses to “Signature strengths”
This is what i am looking for. Thanx Jen!!!!!!!
Yay!
I just completed this, and mine were:
Your Top Strength
Appreciation of beauty and excellence
You notice and appreciate beauty, excellence, and/or skilled performance in all domains of life, from nature to art to mathematics to science to everyday experience.
Your Second Strength
Gratitude
You are aware of the good things that happen to you, and you never take them for granted. Your friends and family members know that you are a grateful person because you always take the time to express your thanks.
Your Third Strength
Curiosity and interest in the world
You are curious about everything. You are always asking questions, and you find all subjects and topics fascinating. You like exploration and discovery.
Your Fourth Strength
Love of learning
You love learning new things, whether in a class or on your own. You have always loved school, reading, and museums-anywhere and everywhere there is an opportunity to learn.
Your Fifth Strength
Fairness, equity, and justice
Treating all people fairly is one of your abiding principles. You do not let your personal feelings bias your decisions about other people. You give everyone a chance.
I love those! What a nice mix.
[…] From PhD to Life’s post today on Signature Strengths prompted me to hop over to the Authentic Happiness website and take the Character Strength Assessment test. After answering 240 questions, it told me that the following are my top six strengths. Now the question: what kind of job, or career, will best utilize these aspects of myself? […]
What an interesting post, mines are 😀
Capacity to love and be loved
Fairness, equity, and justice
Forgiveness and mercy
Kindness and generosity
Love of learning
Awesome! Kindness was fairly high up on my list too, so we’ve got some similarities. Are you finding ways to use these strengths in your life?
I do in my private life and hobbies, but besides “love of learning” not too sure what “to do” with the others…? BTW I also want a coffee with everyone here 😉
Me too!
1. Love of learning
2. Creativity, ingenuity and originality
3. Appreciation of beauty and excellence
4. Bravery and valour
5. Curiosity and interest in the world
Seems about right!
It really does! Wonderful—great set. Are there any you feel you can exploit more than you have been? (Like me.)
Strengths 3-5 have always sort of been part of my hobbies but I can’t seem to figure out a way to weave them into everyday/work life!
A real challenge. If part of a job involved standing up for what’s right or advocating for justice (activism, law, human rights), that could make use of 4. If you were a leader in an organization or a hiring manager, you could appreciate the talents of your employees… or a curator/designer/engineer might appreciate beauty of people, spaces, things. Etc… lots of options, potentially. You can use your curiosity and love of learning to investigate jobs that might be a good fit, and your creativity will come in handy there too, so you can see outside the normal confines of what’s possible!
hey jennifer, what a great post – esp. for the post-ac set who have probably been hearing way too much about their supposed weaknesses. it’s also pretty cool to see the strengths of your readers (I think I’d like to have coffee with everyone here!). haven’t had a chance to do it myself yet…but I will (I guess we’ll see if follow-thru is one of my strengths!)
I know, right? haha. The focus on what we’re all actually good at, what gives us energy, what makes us feel worthwhile… a really useful tool. And, yeah: after the punches of academia it’s true that we could all use the boost! Good insight :).
Let us know what you get.
I took the StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment recently and got the following results as my top 5 strengths:
Learner
Analytical
Achiever
Strategic
Discipline
No surprises there! I found it powerful and quite fun to discuss my results with other people at work (we all took the same assessment), as it helped to confirm some of the characteristics I knew intuitively from working with them! I wonder how many other PhDs have Learner and Achiever in their top strengths?!
Hi, thanks for sharing this.
I had done strengths finder more than ten years ago when I was a programmer for a large corporate and the repeated after I stopped doing that career and my results were different which puzzled me little as the Gallup said that your top natural strangths would be the same no matter how many times you repeat the test. 1st time the result was like this; restorative, individualization, significance, analytical and adaptability. second time; activator, individualization, ideation, comman and communication. I don’t know what to make out the huge difference in the results although i feel more comfortable with the results second time around. Recently I have been reading and learning a lot about positive pcychology and after all those years I did the stengths test again on Martin Seligman’s website. Interesting enough a few strengths in common with you. I would appreciate if you could comment on my top strengths. here they are
1- judgements, critical thinking and open-mindedness
2-citizenship, teamwork and loyalty
3-curiosity and interest in the world
4-fairness, equlity, justice
5-caution, prudence and discretion
Thanks, Gaya
Great strengths! There’s lots of good content about character strengths on the VIA website: https://www.viacharacter.org/www/
Hi thanks for sharing your strengths and how you’ve adjusted your approach to life after finding out about them. I’m curious what you think about this mix which is me/mine. I’m trying to figure out a career path right now.
1. Bravery
2. Honesty
3. Curiosity
4. Self-control/regulation
5. Appreciation of beauty and excellence
You’re high in self-control, which is helpful! It’s uncommon to see it so high. Great mix.