1. A Quick Breakdown
Imagine for a moment that a genie has granted you one wish to improve your life. The only catch is that you must choose between reducing a weakness or increasing a strength. Which would you choose?
Many people would choose to reduce a weakness. Why? There is a strong humanoid focus on rooting out disease and disorder coupled with a widespread belief that fixing the “bad stuff” in life is the way to make things better. What if instead of fixing what is wrong, it was possible to promote what is right? What if in this quest for a better life, identifying and employing strengths was as powerful as eliminating weaknesses? Research reveals this might be the case.
2. The Science
In the 1990s, a group of social scientists put together a manual about what is right with humanoids (also known as the Character Strengths and Virtues catalog). Since that time, hundreds of studies have been conducted on the effect of using strengths at work, home, and generally in life. Here are a snippet of research results:
- Using one’s signature strengths in a new way is an effective intervention to increase happiness and decrease depression for up to 6 months.
- Strengths help one to progress toward goals and support a basic human need for independence.
- Certain strengths including hope, zest, gratitude, and curiosity consistently and repeatedly show a robust correlation with life satisfaction.
- The strengths of love, perseverance, gratitude, and hope predict academic achievement in both middle school and college students.
The bottom line: STRENGTHS MATTER! They are not just assets you have to make you feel good about yourself. You can use strengths to solve problems, to build relationships, and to improve the quality of your well-being.
References
Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2009a). Character strengths: Research and practice. Journal of College and Character, 10(4), np.
Park, N., Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Strengths of character and well-being. Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology, 23, 603–619.
Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: a handbook and classification. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association
Seligman, M. E. P., Steen, T. A., Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2005). Positive psychology progress: Empirical validation of interventions. American Psychologist, 60, 410–421.
3. GoPractice!
What are your greatest strengths? How do you use them in your life? Try the exercise below. For extra credit, take a character strength survey at AuthenticHappiness.com.
This is an exceptional lesson that actually correlates well with almost any period of one’s life. You can be a struggling college student or an employed professional in some high stress capacity. In both instances we have all been in a situation were our own personal weakness and strengths are questioned or reaffirmed, depending on the situation and circumstance. The results as in the video example produce drastically different results. Amazing, really when you can watch it unfold as a third party partial observer. The hard part is obviously internalizing so we can all produce such positive results.
True but I think most of us can relate to having Boss #1 in the video, especially in a high stress capacity or when dealing with the corporate mentality. Then again if you have ever worked for a small family type start up operation, you can have either extreme. From personal experience, I have had wonderful family oriented managers and of course, the ruthless mean, rude and annoying types who basically want you to quit in frustration and anger, or they look for all the “wrongs” which that blatantly verbalize and almost never say thank you or ever acknowledge your “strengths” and how dedicated you are to a particular company or project. The latter seems to be more common hence we have all those special human resource training camps to get adult workers to learn all over again basic human decency and communication in the office. It is like being in Kindergarten all over again!
Arnold Schwarzenegger once said, “Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.” He is absolutely correct. Anyone, especially famous actors, musicians and athletes who have persevered and struggled through earlier hardship and even poverty, external factors and adverse or dysfunctional families have also proclaimed the same thing. It made them stronger and provided a calm resilience in the face of future dilemmas and critical problems. If you look at almost anyone famous and you read their bio’s, it has this common denominator of past struggle leading to some future success. For example, Madonna to the virtuoso flamenco guitarist Paco De Lucia and Hall of Fame boxer Roy Jones Junior all have that past experience in common.
I would have actually chose the same wish, to reduce a weakness. I think society, has this fixation with rooting out all perceived “evils” in ourselves as well as our environment. This kind of long term conservative moralization tends to create a bias that is geared towards identifying and labeling the wrongs. In fact, with most of the major religions, probably with the exception of Buddhism, there is a one sided fixation and obsession with the “wrongs” in ourselves being labeled sins. I think this has so much to do with the bias we have in feeling like we need to eliminate the weakness or wrongs rather then look to the positive side of or natural selves.
To be honest I do not think it is such a negative thing to eliminate weakness. I think it can be viewed as bringing balance in a way. Overall, if everyone is emotionally a combination of such weaknesses and strengths, then trying to ignore one half of our emotional makeup does not seem very wise or honest. I understand about wanting to focus on each of our strengths, but that only reinforces what we are good at anyway. It kind of makes sense that if we eliminate or reduce our weakness we in turn increase our strengths. There is a direct correlation between the two and so bringing balance is somewhat like the eastern philosophical or Buddhist methodology as opposed to western thought.
I see what you are saying and yes I agree. I think the problem begins when you are like the Boss #1 in the video. The complete extreme version with absolutely no balance in perception. I also agree this is more a common type we see in the world today in both jobs, schools and even families as the stress of daily life has a habit of shaping how we deal with those around us. Especially those we depend on. Speaking of Buddhist philosophy, consider….
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion”
~ The Dalai Lama
I think religion, especially the dogmatic traditional conservative types have this incessant one sided bias and focus on what is considered evil and wrong in ourselves (sin) as well as our environment. This creates a perception of the world skewed towards correcting wrongs and flaws rather then focusing on our good qualities and strengths. I think in a way it is the selling point of a majority of these major traditional religions. Overtime this perception becomes habitual in everything we do, unless of course if you break away and become more independent and free spirited. Case in point, watch the documentary “Jesus Camp”…it is controversial but adequately depicts how powerful,especially to the young children how this mentality of always looking for sin and what is wrong in the world can have damaging long term effects.