One of the first activities I had to complete on my well-being course was a questionnaire designed to identify my signature strengths. It was explained to me that I would need to use this information as part of a weekly challenge designed to increase my happiness levels.
Understanding my own personal strengths was not something I had considered as a way to feel happier. ‘So what?’, I thought. ‘I work out what I’m good at, pat myself on the back and carry on as usual – what does knowing this information really add?’
Luckily, I allowed myself to be more open-minded because as it turns out a lot of research has gone into this area with pleasingly positive outcomes. And thankfully, I too had a positive experience undertaking the activity, which is why I’d like to share it with you here.
Before we look at why knowing your signature strengths is helpful, how to go about learning what yours are and ultimately, how to use them to feel happier, let’s first understand…
What is a signature strength?
To fully understand a signature strength, we first need to look at character strengths:
Researchers have defined character strengths as positive, trait-like capacities for thinking, feeling, and behaving in ways that benefit oneself and others
Source: Oxford handbooks
Back in the early 2000’s, Martin Seligman & Christopher Peterson led 55 scientists over a 3-year period to uncover universal character strengths. They determined against 12-point selection criteria there are 24 positive measurable character strengths.
We all, regardless of who we are or where we’re from, hold some degree of each character strength within us. Our signature strengths are the character strengths we possess the greatest degree of.
Related: Why A Bit Of Negative Thinking is Good For you
Why is it helpful to know your signature strengths?
This sort of self-information is very valuable. Understanding your greatest strengths allows you to use them to have a more successful approach to things such as your career, any life challenges and in achieving your personal goals. It helps improve your relationships, enhances your well-being & reduces stress. Ultimately, knowing and using this information can help you feel happier.
Source: VIA Institute on Character
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How do you discover your signature strengths?
It’s very simple and best of all, completely free! The VIA Institute on Character offer a free psychometrically validated personality test that will measure your character strengths. You can access the survey here.
Good to know: The survey takes around 15-minutes to complete. You will need to provide an email address, however, if you don’t want to provide this information, the VIA has listed in-full the 24-character strengths so alternatively, you could read them and determine the ones you feel best represents you.
Top Tip: Be authentic in your answers. There is no right or wrong, just be honest. This way you’ll receive the most helpful results.
How to use signature strengths in your every day life
My course asked me to identify my top 4 signature strengths. In case you’re interested, mine were: Perspective, Humour (obviously), Fairness & Social Intelligence. I was then instructed to select one of these signature strengths each day and use it in a new way for one week.
The idea is based on a 2005 study by Seligman et al. where participants were also asked to carry out the same exercise. They discovered it helped to lastingly increase happiness and decreased depressive symptoms.
By using our signature strengths in new ways we shake things up a bit, we’re not operating on auto-pilot and as we’re playing to our strengths we generally derive higher positive experiences.
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Personally, it was a bit of a challenge to identify new ways to use each strength (especially as we were in lockdown at the time!) when I worked it out and gave it a go, I too felt happier by the end of the week.
Good to know: If you’re stuck for ideas on how to use your signature strengths in new ways, you may find this document helpful and also this article includes lots of prompts.
Finally, it’s really helpful to try to implement your signature strengths at work. Whether that’s in the job you already do, or in choosing your career path.
A study by Harzar & Ruch (2012) found people who described their career choice as a ‘calling’ rather than a ‘job’ were incorporating at least 4 of their main signature strengths into what they do.
And bosses, take note – Lavy & Littman-Odavia (2016) discovered employees who were able to implement more of their signature strengths at work were more productive and reported increased job satisfaction – can I get a ‘lower employee-turnover’ cheer from you please?
Play to your strengths!
When you know your signature strengths find a way to incorporate them into what you do. Not only will you feel happier and more fulfilled, you’ll also be more likely to achieve more positive results.
You may also like: How to Find Your Purpose – The Questions You Need to Ask
Are you already aware of your signature strengths? Do you know how to use signature strengths? Do you use them daily or tried using them intentionally in new ways yet? Are you going to take the survey to find yours out? I’d love you to share your results with me! Whatever you’d like to say or ask! Simply get in touch using the comment box below. I’m happy to help & I always love to hear from you.
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Hello Alex. My key strengths are spirituality, love of humanity, appreciation of beauty and excellence and teamwork. Intriguing!
Thanks so much for sharing! Was that what you were expecting? I hope you get to use your signature strengths in fulfilling ways daily xxx
This is so interesting to read Alex and great to read the strengths that have been identified. I think we (well me certainly) find it difficult to actually identify strengths that we possess, but looking at this list is really helpful because I know that I definitely possess a few of these qualities and I wouldn’t have thought about this beforehand. Thank you so much for sharing this knowledge xx
You’re very welcome Fiona, I’m so pleased you’ve found it helpful – you should definitely take the free survey to see what your top 4 are! Thanks for reading & sharing your thoughts xx
This is a very interesting post. It made me reflect on my signature strengths. Mine were Love, Appreciation of Beauty & Excellence, Spirituality, Love of Learning, and Fairness. Learned a lot – thanks for sharing Alex Grace 🙂
Were they what you were expecting? Hope you come up with loads of new ways to use your strengths & feel even more happiness as a result! Thanks so much for reading & sharing xxx
This was such an interesting read; I’m going to need to take the test and figure out what my signature strengths are! This definitely seems like it would be useful to know and utilize as much as possible.
Yes, definitely take the test – it’s very easy and so helpful! Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts xxx