Why Is It Important to Know Your Strengths
Identifying and focusing on what your strengths are is the first step towards creating a new problem-solving framework. This can be a way in which you are able to recognise how you might already have the coping mechanisms to deal with what life brings your way.
Identifying Strengths on a Personal Level
Various social pressures might cause you to portray a certain image of perfection and having it all. This can understandably lead to heightened anxiety and fear of your own limitations. What are some of the ways in which identifying your strengths can be useful in managing difficult situations better?
Here are a few suggestions:
1. The self-awareness which allows you to recognize what qualities you might be lacking is an important asset in finding out what your positive qualities are. Using your self-awareness to not beat yourself up can work as an important support system for you.
2. You can identify your strengths using several small ways. You can ask the people you trust to give you an honest opinion of your strengths. You can also try writing down what you do each week and what you enjoy about them. Thinking about the activities you enjoy is a great way to identify your strengths.
3. When you are faced with a tricky situation, looking at the negative aspects of it might result in a one-track focus. You might feel that, unless you do not take care of this, you will not be able to do other things. If you were to use your strengths, this would allow you to continue leading your life while still engaging effectively with the problem at hand.
4. Using a strength-based model to deal with your problems can cause a radical shift in how you are able to take care of yourself through the problem’s lifespan, irrespective of the outcome that may or may not be in your control.
While doing this does not guarantee that you will not have disappointments, it does help in avoiding constant negative self-talk. Giving you the much-needed headspace, you need by taking away excessive focus on qualities of yours that you perceive as negative.
Identifying Strengths in an Interpersonal Or, Organisational Problem
A key element of attempting to resolve a painful and troublesome situation in our interpersonal and/or work spheres is, isolating the trouble-causing factors and finding ways to change them.
Doing this might appear to be a rational way of addressing a difficult situation. However, this approach can sometimes result in you being too focused on the negative characteristics of those who are a part of the problem.
What if we were to imagine a model where ways of dealing with the problem at hand, first and foremost, treated all people involved from a place of good faith? What does this mean and what difference does this make compared to the regular model?
To critically look at the qualities of people that are leading to the problem is a relevant and important part of the change; to not do this would be unrealistic.
However, the error occurs here when attention is paid only to the lack in individuals’ qualities and not given to anything else. If you were to take the time to figure out the positive qualities and strengths of the people involved, it would make it easier to move towards a solution-oriented mindset. Through the utilization of these identified strengths, concrete and achievable goals can be formulated to improve upon the existing situation.
Many of the fallouts of focusing keenly on only the negative aspects of a situation do not arise as severely when the above approach is taken.
Sources:
http://positivepsychologynews.com/news/laura-lc-johnson/2014082529720
https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/positive-psychology-theory/
https://www.34strong.com/choosing-strengths-to-manage-stress/