Find Your Strengths

Here's an easy recipe for loving your life and ousting the blues: try playing to your pluses!

By Paula Robinson, registered psychologist, senior partner at the Positive Psychology Institute and expert in mental fitness

Bring your signature strengths to light. Stick with this exercise, and you'll not only identify more of what you're best at, but also uncover your keys to greater self-worth, happiness, confidence and fulfilment.

1. Talk to the page

Buy a notebook; choose one you'll enjoy using. Attach a pen. Keep it within easy reach; I have mine near my bed at night, in my handbag if I'm out during the day and in my kitchen when I'm home.

2. Find out what works

Write down what you think is working for you now. For example, you might write: I love my job and the people I work with. Then ask those around you what they think are your strengths; research suggests this process can help you recognise your strong points.

3. Pinpoint the positive

Write down what you love to do. When you feel good, consider why you're feeling this way. What are you doing? Every time this happens, write it down. If you can’t think of any examples, write about what you really enjoy doing but rarely get the opportunity to engage in.

4. Join the dots

Observe others who use their strengths well, such as your best friend who looks at things from different perspectives (open-mindedness) or your child who wants to paint (creativity). Get familiar with the strengths that mean something to you.

5. Take action!

Once you have a list of your star attributes, the challenge is to discover how to use them more often and grow the list of what's working for you. Start by taking one of your key strengths and using it in a way you haven't before. For example, to develop your curiosity, you could: expand your knowledge in an area of interest through books, journals, magazines, TV, radio or Internet for a half-hour, three times a week; or find people with whom you share an interest, and learn how they increase their expertise in that area.

Begin nourishing your strengths so they can power your future.

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