Find Your Strength(s)

When you Google “tips on keeping your resolutions,” there are 26,000,000 hits.  Despite all the advice out there, most of us break our New Year’s resolutions.  In fact, when you Google “Why do we break our resolutions,” you get 26,800,000 hits!

I don’t have any magic resolution-keeping advice.  But I do have a suggestion… Find out what you’re already good at – your strengths.

Christopher Peterson and Martin E. P. Seligman defined 24 possible strengths in their book “Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Clarification.”  They fall under 6 categories:

• Wisdom and Knowledge – Cognitive strengths that entail the collection and use of knowledge
• Courage – Emotional strengths that involve the exercise of will to accomplish goals in the face of opposition, external or internal
• Humanity – Interpersonal strengths that involve tending and befriending others
• Justice – Civic strengths that underlie healthy community life
• Temperance – Strengths that protect against excess
• Transcendence – Strengths that forge connections to the larger universe and provide meaning

I’ve taken this survey twice, 15 months ago and on Saturday. My results were the same, but in different order. My latest strengths order results:  1) spirituality, sense of purpose, and faith; 2) capacity to love and be loved; 3) citizenship, teamwork, and loyalty; 4) fairness, equity and justice; and 5) gratitude.

You can take a FREE on-line strength assessment that will list your personal top 5 character strengths.  You can register here and take the VIA Survey of Character by clicking on the “Enter the Survey Center to Register” link.

I have to warn you that the survey is 240 questions long.  But it’s worth it.

Come back next week and I’ll tell you what you can do with your strengths to have a more fulfilling life.

Michael Takahara is a health educator at Student Health. Post comments, suggestions, and/or questions here or email Michael.takahara@sa.ucsb.edu, facebook or tweet him.