What is your “mantra” this week? I have some ideas for you that can help bring forth your character strengths, boost your connections with others, and overall make you feel better. Here are three phrases that could make a lasting impression.

Gratitude

When the wildly popular poet Mary Oliver was asked “What is spirituality?” she had this to say (paraphrasing): It’s when we go about our day and to each person we meet and to each thing we encounter, we say, “Thank you, thank you.”

What would happen if you used your strength of gratitude in this way? Could you say that (and mean it) to your colleague who is disagreeing with you? To your child who is screaming his head off? To your neighbor who is complaining to you about your lawn? Could you say a heartfelt “thank you” to the trees you pass by as you walk, the squirrel galloping by, and the piece of trash floating in the wind?

Forgiveness

Forgiveness, at its core, is about letting go. It’s the opposite of clinging, holding closely to your grudges or harboring anger from misgivings of the past. Let’s turn to the wisdom of a child named Ian, who was interviewed about how he handles problems in school. He shares how he turns to his forgiveness strength at difficult times and uses the phrase, “It’s OK, it’s OK,” when someone wrongs him.

What do you need to say, “It’s OK” to? Can you say it (and mean it) to someone who apologizes to you after they hurt you? Can you say, “It’s OK, it’s OK,” to yourself when you feel anger or sadness welling up inside you, allowing the feeling to just be there? What about when you feel the world seems unfair and filled with nothing but hardship?

Curiosity

At its core, your character strength of curiosity is about exploration. To be curious about something is to intend to gather more information, to build new ideas, to gravitate to a new experience. Our attention becomes captivated in the moment, and we open ourselves to learning and experiencing the newness. Our mind is fresh and ready, and we feel refreshed.

You can prompt yourself to your curious mind with a response of “That’s interesting, that’s interesting.” Mental health professionals say this all the time to clients to show interest and to encourage the client to share more. We use this phrase in our conversation with a friend out getting a drink, in our friendly debates with someone who offers a different point of view, and when someone shares something surprising or insightful with us. “Hmmm, that’s interesting,” we say.

What would it be like to go about your day with this phrase in mind? Might you say it to yourself when you are struggling with a work project? When you feel stressed out in your relationship? When you are sitting in traffic? What positive action might this curiosity prompt?

Taking Action

These three character strengths — gratitude, forgiveness, and curiosity — have hundreds of scientific studies supporting their existence, uses, and benefits. Pick one strength. If you were to focus on one of these strengths — using a phrase above — two things would be very likely:

1. You’d feel a boost to your personal well-being.

2. You’d be making others feel better, more empowered, or more connected to you.

So, what do you have to lose? Pick one of these strengths, use the phrase as much as you can (verbally or nonverbally) as you go about your day interacting with others and connecting with the larger world . . . and reap the benefits!

It can be as easy as this:

• Thank you, thank you.
• It’s OK, it’s OK.
• That’s interesting, that’s interesting.

How do you handle good things that happen to you? Do you relish in the success or let your mind go to something that brings you down? You might be inadvertently sabotaging your own happiness by allowing negative thoughts to creep in when something good comes your way.

For instance, consider something good in your life – a small accomplishment on your work project, the desire for the chocolate ice cream cone you are ordering, the joy of your team winning a game, or the connection you feel with the person you are talking to. You can then amplify the positive of any of these by savoring and focusing on the good feelings. Or, you can deflate and dampen the positive by minimizing the good. This happens in your thinking. It is an automatic response.  Researchers refer to these as up-regulation and down-regulation.

Negative, Dampening Thoughts 

Some of your negative thoughts can absolutely crush your positive feelings and in turn, make you more vulnerable to negative mood states. If you want to feel bad and dampen a good experience you are having, then try on these 7 dampening thoughts that researchers have been studying:

1.     I don’t deserve this.

2.     These good feelings won’t last.

3.     My streak of being lucky is soon going to end.

4.     There are so many things that could go wrong.

5.     This is too good to be true for me.

6.     People will think I’m bragging if I share the positive.

7.     Lots of things have gone wrong for me in the past.

If you have many of these thoughts often – especially when a positive experience arises – you might be more vulnerable to depression or other struggles in mental health. It seems that the more you agree with these 7 statements the more you may have trouble finding joy in your experiences.

As we know from scores of psychological studies, our negativity mindset is more contagious and powerful than our positivity mindset. We need a lot of skills to counterbalance our brain’s wiring for what’s wrong. Many approaches have shown to be helpful, from character strengths use and mindfulness meditation, to acceptance approaches and cognitive-behavioral work.

Developing a New Mindset

If you are getting lost in some or all of these 7 thoughts, let’s take a look at how your character strengths can help you. Remember that your character strengths are more resilient than your positive thoughts or your feelings of joy and excitement. Because character strengths are stable parts of your personality, they are a perfect foundation for creating a strong and mindful mindset. While “thinking positive” (which was proven ineffective in these studies) is as transient as leaves blowing by in the wind, your character strengths are part of you – ready and waiting to be manifested, over and over again.

Here are a few tips to get you started.

1. Catch your mind when it enters into the dampening zone. You can become more mindful of what’s going on in your mind and watch out for these 7 thoughts, learn from them, and manage them.  Use your character strength of curiosity to be tuned into the negative or dark places your mind may enter. Notice, with curiosity, when your mind wanders away from the positive experience at hand, and come back to your senses. Come back to being curious about what you see and hear and smell. Focus on one positive detail – be curious and interested in it.
2. Check and challenge the dampening thought you are having. Use your judgment/critical thinking strength to check the dampening thought of “I don’t deserve this” with a question: Is this thought realistic and accurate? How is it true or untrue? Your judgment will help you be rational and logical about the validity of the thought. And, use your perseverance strength to challenge your thoughts and stick with your back-talk to yourself: Are people really going to think you’re bragging? Is it really bragging when you share a positive emotion?
3. Correct and accept your new reality. Use your strengths of self-kindness and self-fairness to view the positive and negative realities about your thoughts in a fair way. Your kindness-turned-inward can prevent unnecessary self-deprecation and provide you a gentler approach to yourself as you face the more balanced reality.

References: 

In this post we’ll breakdown the best insights from a recent article in the American Psychological Association publication, Monitor on Psychology, called “The Search for Meaning”. The main takeaway is: there are many things you can do right now to build more meaning into your life.

What is your reason for getting up in the morning? What inspires you to be the best version of yourself? In essence, what gives your life meaning?

Scientists have looked closely at the sources of meaning in life and have tried to make sense of ways people like you and I search for and discover meaning. What is it within us that connects with a life of meaning? Across two studies separated by 13 years involving people from different cultures, there were three core character strengths that rose to the top as being most important for a meaningful life (Peterson and colleagues, 2005; Wagner and colleagues, 2018). The 3 strengths are curiosity, gratitude, and spirituality.

Other strengths research has shown that two of these three (curiosity and gratitude) are quite common. They are among the most endorsed strengths across the globe (McGrath, 2015; Park and colleagues, 2006). This means many people relate to these strengths and appreciate their potential. Here’s how these strengths connect with meaning and how you can give each a quick boost right now.

Curiosity

If you are high in curiosity, you love to explore what’s new and different. Novelty is your friend. Asking questions is your default approach. Trying new foods, meeting new people, and traveling to new places are ways you satisfy your curiosity for life.

When you use curiosity to explore your world, your are searching, wandering, and wondering–you are seeking adventures. In this way, you are trying to make sense of your experiences and the world around you. That type of sense-making is known as coherence and is a central element of meaning in life.

Quick boost: During the next activity you do after finishing this article, pay attention to three novel features of the activity. Use your senses to notice small details you would normally take for granted. If your next activity is to walk downstairs, pay attention to the movement of your body and the placement of each foot on the ground. If your next task is to check your email, pay attention to the muscles in your thumb and fingers as they swiftly take action on your smart-phone or keyboard. If your next task is to talk to a colleague, pay attention to the expressions on their face, the speed of their words, and the strengths they are using.

I’ve always avoided watering my yard, outdoor plants, trees, anything. For decades (literally) my sprinklers have rested comfortably in the dust of my garage. My preconception of yard and tree watering was that it was tedious and uninteresting. So I always avoided it and kept my fingers crossed for rain.

That was true for all those years until recently. I planted two new trees and 11 bushes in my front and backyard this summer. And, after spending time and money on the new shrubs, I knew I had a new kind of choice: Water all the new additions every day or watch them wither and die. So, I dusted off the sprinkler, fidgeted for several minutes (which seemed like hours) to get it to work, dragged out the hoses, and began the watering.

This was a new habit I had to develop and one I needed to remember each morning or evening – regularly moving the sprinkler around to reach everything. After a couple days, something shifted in me. I really began to enjoy this. I began to appreciate the “life” I was helping to develop and flourish. I began to spend more time in my yard, walking around, appreciating the beauty, and imagining future plans for making it even greener and more peaceful.

I share this story with you for several reasons, all related to handling challenges: strengths-spotting practice; mindfulness with what we dislike; metaphor for flourishing. I’ll tackle each of these three now.

Strengths-spotting practice

Every story (yes, every story) is an opportunity for looking for and finding character strengths. Look to your positive high-point stories, your low-point stressful stories, and the mundane/boring stories of your life. All have character strengths resting in them to some degree. In my story, what strengths do you spot? What is the rationale for each strength you spotted?

When I re-examine the story (which is a good, personal positive activity, by the way), I see my hope strength of looking to the future in a positive way, I see appreciation of beauty for the greenness and the development of the plants, and I see self-regulation in having a discipline to establish a new habit on a schedule. When we examine a life challenge or problem using the lens of character strengths, we begin to transform the problem. Our mind begins to perceive it in a new way. This opens up new learning and growing opportunities for us.

Mindfulness for what we dislike

Harvard researcher/psychologist Ellen Langer once did an innovative study in which she randomly assigned people to either do an activity they disliked or to do an activity they disliked while focusing on three novel features of the disliked activity. For example, if a person chose vacuuming as the disliked activity then they might pay attention to the whirling sound of the vacuum cleaner, feeling the movement of the cleaner around sharp corners, and watching the dust swirl up. What she discovered is that those who did the disliked activity and were curious (noticing novel qualities of the task) ended up enjoying the activity more and doing the activity more on their own after the experiment concluded!

It’s easy to get locked into what we dislike – foods, places, work tasks, even people. But, what would happen if you challenged yourself to use mindful attention and curiosity to face it? This is the opposite of avoidance. It is mindfulness for what is real in the moment. When we face the difficulties directly, we begin to discover what we were missing all along. I was missing out on a lot of beauty, new yard developments, an inner joy, and positive experiences in my avoidance of yard watering.

Metaphor for flourishing

It’s hard to miss the metaphor of attending to something to help it to grow. I’m in the midst of attending to my bushes and trees to help them to grow and (hopefully) flourish. We can bring our mindful attention to our character strengths. This will help them to develop and grow. Character strengths research repeatedly shows a strong connection between these character strengths and a flourishing life. A life of high well-being.

Start with yourself: What you have been avoiding? How might you use your best strengths to discover something new about a challenging task, situation, or person?

References

Yes, it’s true that your character strengths are relatively stable characteristics. But, change is possible! You have the power to boost any of your strengths by making a concerted effort to exercise the strength more in your daily life.

For example, I recall Sarah, a middle-aged woman, approaching me prior to a workshop I was about to deliver in Australia. She was excited, eager to share her news. She said she’d taken the VIA Survey six years ago and discovered her character strength of self-regulation was dead-last in her rank order of 24 strengths. She explained how this was unsettling to her. And she vowed to improve this part of herself.

Sarah went about focusing on ways she could use this character strength in her daily life. She talked about the strength with others, spotted it in action in people she respected, and monitored her use of the strength from week to week. She discovered times she was using it well, such as her keeping a discipline with her morning routine. Upon a closer look, she saw that her self-regulation in the morning centered around having a plan, feeling peaceful in her routine, and following a time schedule with it. This gave her something to build upon. When something got in the way of her routine, she called it a “happy accident” and returned to her schedule. Over the months, she monitored her daily habits such as eating, sleeping, drinking, and meditating. She made minor improvements to these healthy approaches in her life and kept a watchful eye on each to not backtrack into the world of vices and bad habits.

Sarah explained that when she took the VIA Survey again, a week prior to my workshop, her self-regulation had risen to be her number 2 strength. She explained this strength captured an important part of who she is. She had previously – unbeknownst to her – allowed self-regulation to fall dormant…underused and unattended to. There can be many reasons for this shift in Sarah’s rank-order of strengths but a highly plausible explanation is she did indeed impact one of her character strengths for the better.

Sarah is in good company when it comes to the development of character. Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher, and St. Thomas Aquinas, each argued that virtues can be acquired through practice. One of the founding fathers of the United States, Benjamin Franklin, set up his own personal system in which he placed his attention on improving one virtue per week, closely tracking his progress and journaling about his experiences. In his autobiography, he described this approach as contributing greatly to his happiness and life successes.

Modern day researchers have been slower on the uptake of this idea, arguing that qualities of personality and character are rigid and unchanging, as if set in stone like an engraved mark. However, new research in personality psychology shows that personality is relatively changeable and that the change is not necessarily slow and gradual as previously thought (examples of scientific studies include Blackie and colleagues, 2014; Harris and colleagues, 2016; Hudson & Fraley, 2015; Roberts and colleagues, 2017).

There are many factors that can impact our personality and character. Examples include changes in your life role, such as getting married, having a child, or joining the military, or experiencing an atypical life event such as going through a trauma. These various factors might increase or decrease your character strengths. In a study of people before and after the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, the character strengths of gratitude, hope, kindness, leadership, love, spirituality, and teamwork all increased in a U.S. sample (but not in a European sample) 2 months after (Peterson & Seligman, 2003). And, ten months later these character strengths still showed elevations. Potentially, this tragedy unleashed positive qualities in the character of many?

Another way we can impact our character, and something we have more control over, is the use of deliberate interventions. In other words, focus on improving one of your character strengths – make a plan and stick with it. This was tested by positive psychology educator Michelle McQuaid, in collaboration with the VIA Institute, among thousands of people across 65 countries in 2015. Each individual focused on a character strength they wanted to improve and set forth with a plan to improve it. They found that the character strengths were changeable, malleable to a degree and many positive outcomes emerged such as higher flourishing, engagement, energy, and feeling more equipped to set weekly goals, name their own strengths, and have meaningful conversations at work.

The central idea here is this: If you want to improve one of your character strengths, follow the lead of Sarah and take action. Creating new habits of virtue and strength takes practice and sustained effort. Every one of us (yes, all 7.6 billion of us) can benefit from focusing on one or more of the 24 universal character strengths.

Start wherever you like. Pick one strength and improve yourself. You can learn to become more kind, more creative, more wise, or more brave today.

References

^{Blackie, L. E. R., Roepke, A. M., Forgeard, M. J. C., Jayawickreme, E., & Fleeson, W. (2014). Act well to be well: The promise of changing personality states to promote well-being. In A. C. Parks, & S. Schueller (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell handbook of positive psychological interventions (pp. 462–474). Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.}

^{Harris, M. A., Brett, C. E., Johnson, W., & Deary, I. J. (2016). Personality stability from age 14 to age 77 years. Psychology and Aging, 31(8), 862–874.}

^{Hudson, N. W., & Fraley, R. C. (2015). Volitional personality trait change: Can people choose to change their personality traits? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109(3), 490–507http://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000021}

McQuaid, M., & VIA Institute on Character (2015). VIA character strengths at work

^{Niemiec, R. M. (2018). Character strengths interventions: A field-guide for practitioners. Boston: Hogrefe.}

^{Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2003). Character strengths before and after September 11.Psychological Science, 14, 381–384. http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.24482}

^{Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. New York, NY: Oxford University Press/ Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.}

^{Roberts, B. W., Luo, J., Briley, D. A., Chow, P. I., Su, R., & Hill, P. L. (2017). A systematic review of personality trait change through intervention. Psychological Bulletin, 143(2), 117–141.}

What do you think – are there certain strengths that are more common in one gender than the other? Guess no more. We now have research that indicates this to be true.

The study, conducted by researchers in Switzerland, examined well over 1 million people who had taken the VIA Survey of strengths across 65 published samples (groups of people) spanning 4 countries and multiple age groups (children, adolescents, adults). The results were interesting. Across the 24 character strengths, there was consistent, remarkable similarity between men and women. But, there were small yet meaningful differences discovered for four strengths that were higher for women (none for men).

These strengths are:

1. Appreciation of beauty and excellence: You notice and appreciate beauty, excellence, and/or skilled performance in many domains of life. This includes the virtuous actions of people, the beauty of the sunshine glistening off a pond, the skill of a music teacher, and the artwork completed by your child.
2. Kindness: You do favors and good deeds to help, support, or take care of others. You are generous with your time, money, and talents. You are compassionate, deeply feeling or understanding the suffering of others.
3. Love: You value close relationships with people. Your sharing of warmth, genuineness, and closeness is reciprocal where you pursue a give and take relationship.
4. Gratitude: You are aware of and thankful for the good things that happen to you. You take time to express thankfulness in some way to people.

These are 4 important character strengths that can be appreciated in any person that expresses them. Research shows each can be developed and strengthened as well.

In addition to the interesting finding on these four differences, it’s worth repeating that the main finding was how similar men and women were across the 24 character strengths.

While pundits and self-help proponents like to point out the differences between men and women, attention should also be brought to the similarities and common ground. This research supports the “gender similarity hypothesis.” The reality is we are far more alike than different. Our common character strengths tap into that “alikeness,” that alignment between men and women. There is universality among human beings in that these core characteristics are found in all of us. Men and women have more to relate to in one another than we realize.

For example, a woman can point out the strengths of fairness or teamwork in a man. He immediately understand what these qualities are, hears her explanation of how she sees the strengths in him, and he is inspired to exercise them more in his life. Meanwhile, a man can directly reinforce the strengths of hope or love of learning in a woman as a way of helping her understand herself and improve upon the strengths. Any man or woman can immediately relate to these strengths and begin corresponding with them. There are 24 “common ground” qualities we can appreciate in one another and by which we can build relationships and manage conflicts.

Caveat

It’s important to note that these research findings are done on groups of people so a given man can certainly be higher on love or kindness than a woman and a given woman can be higher than a man on strengths not mentioned such as creativity, perspective, or prudence. It’s also important to look at what might be accounting for differences such as nationality (not an impact factor in this study), age (this accounts for some differences), and type of test taken (this also accounts for some differences).

What are your hopes for the future? Too often we go through the motions of life- running from one activity to the next- without taking time to think about how we can do things now to further develop our “best self”.

What would happen if you made time, just 5 minutes, to sit down quietly to consider your future? Not your future work tasks or fun things you’ll be doing, but who you want to be in your future. Researchers ask people this and take it a step further: Picture yourself – at your actual best – thriving and living a full, happy life one year from now. Researchers call this your best possible self.

And they have studied it. Quite a bit actually. There have been 31 scientific studies published on this, most coming out in the last 8 years. A new study this month reviewed all of those studies to see if this best possible self activity was beneficial. They found the activity to be quite successful in these ways:

1. It boosts optimism and hope, so you are quicker to look for the positive amidst the downpour of stress and negativity that often surrounds us.
2. It boosts positive emotions, so you feel good in the moment. Typical positive emotions are feelings like joy, interest, gratitude, excitement, and peace.
3. It boosts health and well-being. We can all benefit from feeling healthier and experiencing a more global sense of wellness.

Researchers have looked at this activity from different angles. Sometimes they ask people to look at their best possible self in a general way in the future, and others focus on a particular domain such as your best possible self in a relationship or in your community or in your career.

Here are some steps to help guide you. I’ve added in the step of character strengths to help you think of the actual pathways to getting to your best possible self after you imagine it (this is a crucial step missed by many researchers).

1. Select a time in your future (e.g., 6 months, 1 year, 5 years from now) and imagine that at that time you are expressing your best possible self strongly.

2. Imagine it in details where you have worked hard and succeeded at accomplishing your life goals and deepened your relationships. You might think of this as reaching your full potential, hitting an important milestone, or realizing one of your life dreams. The point is not to think of unrealistic fantasies, rather, things that are positive and attainable within reason.

3. After you have a fairly clear image, write about the details. Writing your best possible self down helps to create a logical structure for the future and can help you move from the realm of foggy ideas and fragmented thoughts to concrete, real possibilities.

4. Write about the character strengths that you observe in this image. See the full list of 24 character strengths.

5. And, what character strengths will you need to deploy to make this best possible self a reality?

Future Research

The researchers then suggested a new twist to advance the exercise: Consider a best possible self for someone else. This has not been studied yet but the activity might go something like this:

Think about the life of your loved one in the future, perhaps 1 year from now.  Imagine that everything is going well for them. They have succeeded in accomplishing great things, built strong relationships, and experienced good health. Imagine the character strengths they have used to make this happen. What character strengths helped them build these good relationships? Which ones were instrumental in helping them reach high achievements? What character strengths helped them build good health?

This activity may help you “see the good” in your relationship partner as well as bring you to more clearly appreciate their best qualities.

Research has not yet followed up with people who do this exercise. Wouldn’t it be interesting to learn what percentage of people actually achieve their best possible self one year after they first imagined it? Does checking in with a helping professional or coach each month on best possible self goals and strengths used serve to make achieving it a reality?

So, I bring it back to you: Have you imagined your best possible self lately?

For more details and examples of what people have said when doing this exercise, take a look at my previous article on the best possible self.

References

How do you manage stress at work? Take a quick walk? Refill your coffee? Listen to your favorite song? These are all examples of using simple, relaxation strategies to step away and ease tension. But, do they work? We are now learning, there may be a better way to de-stress…

New research out this month from scientists at the University of Michigan found that learning something new at work served as a stress buffer, whereas relaxation strategies had no effect. In other words, doing something active (engaging yourself with learning) rather than passive (distracting yourself by relaxation) was crucial. The researchers conducted two studies of employees, one involved “experience sampling” which is an approach that studied the employees’ experiences “in the moment” at work.

They also found that learning something new at work was not only a great stress buffer but it also was useful in managing negative emotions at work (e.g., anxiety, disappointment, and frustration). Taking time to relax at work did not serve as a buffer for negative emotions.

Learning new things is a resource-builder. It builds your internal capacity. Relaxation approaches take a different avenue – they attempt to dampen your stress and your negative emotions. Lowering your work demands is useful at times such as when you have “bitten off more than you can chew.” But, lowering your work pressures or demands should not be viewed as your default approach to turn to. The researchers conclude that it is “doing more” (learning) and not “doing less” (relaxing) that is the key.

These findings weave in cleanly with the science of character strengths and its best practices. This study is highlighting the importance of building internal capacity to manage stress. Character strengths are some of our most important internal capacities! Here are some practical ways to make the connection of character strengths with this study.

1.) As this research suggests, build your general capacity of resources by becoming more aware of your signature strengths – those qualities most energizing and essential to who you are. Studies show that using character strengths at work builds your coping, manages work stress, and improves work productivity.

Example, Jacob (mentioned earlier), began to use his signature strengths more consciously at work. Jacob is high in creativity, bravery, and gratitude. He decided he would bring each of these strengths more regularly into his team meetings (which he typically led). He used creativity to share a wider range of his ideas for different projects, bravery to challenge other team members when they were taking the discussion in an uninformed or less productive direction, and gratitude by sharing his appreciation for each employee and their unique strengths that he saw them using at work.

Researchers and theorists have discovered six core themes that contribute to healthy psychological functioning. In the post below, I’ll discuss these themes and also provide advice from real people on how character strengths play a role in each of these pathways.

1.) Environmental mastery

What it means: You manage a variety of life situations well. You create situations that match your strengths, needs, and values.

Liam’s story: “My family is always busy doing something – activities, traveling, having fun outside. We do things that are a fit best for all of us. And, I always try to set things up well for my family. If we are taking a trip, going to a restaurant, or simply heading out to soccer practice, I make sure everything is planned out, and that everyone will be busy and active in what we’re about to do.”

What the research shows: Zest and hope

Liam’s strengths advice: “Tap into your hope strength by creating a vision for what you (or your family) want to do for a weekend or a particular activity. Make sure everyone is involved. Then, use your energy and positive enthusiasm to make the most of the experience.”

2.) Purpose in life

What it means: You feel there is a sense of direction in your life. You find a sense of meaning in your past and current experiences.

Jade’s story: “My work is my purpose. I work for an organization that is on the frontline of fighting diseases in non-industrialized countries. I travel around the world, helping people to overcome treatable diseases like malaria and diseases that come from unclean water. I see the difference that my team and I are making every day. It’s a great feeling.”

What the research shows: Perseverance and self-regulation

Jade’s strengths advice: “Think of it this way: How can you make the world a better place? Maybe it’s your work, maybe it’s through your family. Maybe it’s a volunteer job you could get. Whatever it is, stick with it. Stay focused on that purpose no matter what obstacles or challenges come your way. It can be a discipline to stick with it but hey, it’s your purpose, so it should be something that energizes you and does not feel like a burden.”

3.) Personal growth

What it means: You view yourself as a person who is growing and continuously developing. You take self-knowledge and turn it into self-improvement.

Cody’s story: “As a father this is really important to me. My own father left me when I was young so I never really met him. I don’t want to make the same mistake with my little girl. I want to keep improving myself – bettering myself in my work and in my health. I figure I just have one life to live so I should try to reach my best. Then, I’ll be that much stronger for my daughter.”

What the research shows: Curiosity and love of learning

Cody’s strengths advice: “Use your curiosity and learning to go after new topics you are interested in. Never allow dullness or boredom to take over. There’s always something to explore and learn about. For me, I’m curious about all the positive ways that people parent. I’m learning so much about ways I can improve.”

4.) Positive relationships

What it means: You care about the well-being of others. You are empathic, and have warm and trusting connections with others.

Trent’s story: “My family and friends are everything to me. Most of my time is spent with my closest friends or my immediate family. I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my life. I really value the care and support I receive from them when I’m struggling. And, I try to go out of my way to be there for them too, at good times and bad.”

What the research shows: Love and social intelligence

Trent’s strengths advice: “I don’t think it matters how many good relationships you have. As long as you have one or two. Use your strengths to listen really well to those people. Try to hear their needs and hopes. Then, see if you can help them.”

5.) Autonomy

What it means: You are able to make choices with confidence. You are independent, able to resist social pressures.

Ava’s story: “I would describe myself as a strong woman. I try not to be too overbearing but I am someone who will share my opinions and feelings in almost any situation. It never seems to bother me to speak up or to go against the crowd. I’m responsible for my choices and I set high standards for the choices I make.”

What the research shows: Bravery

Ava’s strengths advice: “Speak your perspective. Even if it’s uncomfortable. The world needs your feelings and opinions now more than ever. You can be independent and brave while also being loving and kind. Try to find your way there.”

6.) Self-acceptance

What it means: You see the positives and negatives in your life and accept them as part of you and your life experience. You have a positive attitude about yourself.

Jaime’s story: “When I was growing up, I didn’t like myself very much. I allowed people to push me around and I drank a lot. I tried to cover up my insecurities. As an adult, I’ve learned that I, like everyone else, make mistakes and have weaknesses and flaws. That’s OK. It’s normal. I can accept that. What’s more exciting is that I also have many talents and gifts to share with the world. I’m just beginning to understand all of the strengths I have. I can certainly accept those too.”

What the research shows: Hope and zest

Jaime’s strengths advice: “Be enthusiastic about your character strengths. Rather than finding exceptions where your strengths weren’t perfect, look for ways in which they have served you well. Name your weaknesses and struggles. Rather than feeling bad about them, embrace them and use them as a motivator to become stronger.”

Final comment

This article was inspired by the many researchers across the globe who are involved in the study of character strengths and happiness. A dizzying array of connections between character strengths and every area of psychological well-being and subjective well-being have been found. For this post, the work of Dr. Claudia Harzer from Germany was the main inspiration. Gratitude also goes to psychological well-being researcher Dr. Carol Ryff for her innovative theoretical work and the first to collate the six areas of psychological well-being discussed above.