NAP- Neighborhood Alliance of Pawtucket

Signature Strengths

Interesting Self Analysis

What is Signature Strength?
Taking the VIA Signature Strength Survey on http://www.authentichappiness.com

Knowing your signature strengths will help you make better choices and improve your odds for happiness and fulfillment in your life.

Martin Seligman, PhD and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi are researching human happiness. Dr. Seligman studies people who are high functioning, happy and effective to understand how to help people live full and meaningful lives.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has coined the word, “flow” to describe those moments in your life when you are so involved in what you are doing that you loose track of time, and you are really engaged and using all your skills. He finds that when you have more of those moments in your life, you report feeling more fulfilled and happy. When you are using your signature strengths you experience more flow. Knowing what your personal strengths are helps you choose activities that use them. Use the VIA Signature Strength Survey to identify your top five.

Dr. Seligman research has identified 24 character strengths or moral traits. These differ from talents, which are “non-moral” and also “not as buildable as strengths”. He describes talents as perfect pitch, or facial beauty, something you are born with and can do little to augment. Signature strengths on the other hand can be learned, built upon and developed over time. They include:


1. Curiosity and interest in the world,
2. Love of learning,
3. Judgment/critical thinking/open-mindedness;
4. Ingenuity/originality/practical intelligence/street smarts;
5. Social intelligence/personal intelligence/emotional intelligence;
6. Perspective;
7. Valor and bravery;
8. Perseverance/industry/diligence;
9. Integrity/genuine/honesty;
10. Kindness and generosity;
11. Loving and allowing oneself to b loved;
12. Citizenship/duty/teamwork/loyalty;



13. Fairness and equity;
14. Leadership;
15. Self-control;
16. Prudence/discretion/caution;
17. Humility and modesty;
18. Appreciation of beauty and excellence;
19. Gratitude;
20. Hope/optimism/future-mindedness;
21. Spirituality/sense of purpose/faith/religiousness;
22. Forgiveness and mercy;
23. Playfulness and humor
24. Zest/passion/enthusiasm




Go to http://www.authentichappiness.com and log on. Your data is anonymous but secure and used for a good cause, research on happiness and life satisfaction. There are many surveys there, feel free to take any one’s that interest you. But for our work together please fill out the VIA Signature Strength Survey and print out all 24 character strengths and bring it to the workshop.

Once you know your top five signature strengths you can begin to look for ways to use them in your life, in your hobbies and activities. This gives you criteria to help choose among all the opportunities.

Richard N. Bolles and John E. Nelson in their book, What Color is your Parachute For Retirement, have a good chapter on using signature strengths. Read Page 125-155; Discover your strengths.

Testing

Free Authentic Happiness Tests