15. Strength Spotting
Strength Spotting
The carrot or the stick?
Celebrating a person’s strengths is more uplifting and increases engagement better than focusing on their weaknesses. It’s not rocket science when you think about it. Do you tend to avoid the ‘nit-pickers’ who focus on everything you are doing wrong? or do you tend to want to be with people that see the good in you?
What are your strengths? “A strength is a pre-existing capacity for a particular way of behaving, thinking or feeling that is authentic and energising to the user, and enables optimal functioning, development and performance”. (Linley, 2008)
Where can you go to find out about your own personal strengths? Here is a link to a free VIA Character Strengths survey you can take online that will give you 24 character strengths. Two other Strengths tools that I have played around with are Clifton Strengths and Strengths Profile but these you have to pay for.
It’s often easier to see the strengths in others than in ourselves. For this ‘Live Up To You, 19 for 19’ challenge I went ‘Strength Spotting’. I applied what I learnt in my Diploma of Positive Psychology and Wellbeing course and noticed when people were really energised and excited about what they were doing. When people are using their strengths they tend to light up, there is a change in their tone and speed of their speech, and they become more animated. Their descriptions are rich and colourful, and they use phrases such as “I love” and “this really suits”. Once I noticed a strength I shared it with them. Some people had never considered their own strengths and there were a few magical moments where you could see someone find something in themselves they had never considered before. It is easy to focus on weaknesses and we are literally ‘wired for it’ with our negativity bias, however it is transformational to focus on strengths and there is a mountain of evidence from the positive psychology world that supports this. Go and try this ‘strength spotting’ challenge and let us know how it goes!