Understanding WHO you really are
Understanding your character strengths is an important part of finding yourself, or learning who you truly are.
For myself, buried beneath years of dieting, over eating, horrendous body image challenges, exercising followed by doing barely any exercising at all, there I was. But truthfully, I couldn’t see me. I never really knew who I was.
I had become so conditioned to be the ‘me’ who I was trained to be, the me who the outside world saw, I had lost sight of who I really was, if I even ever knew her. Unconsciously, I attemped to be strong & resilient, smiley and happy.
It’s not that I am not strong and resilient, smiley and happy, I absolutely am. But that isn’t WHO I am.
(Inside I was crumbling emotionally – but that story is for another page)
Understanding my character strengths has supported me in getting to know who I really am – underneath all the surface-level lifey stuff.
I find many of my clients have little awareness of how wonderful they are. I see the big hearts and so much beauty in the people I work with, and their amazing traits, but typically all they have seen is the things that are ‘wrong’. The things that they have been led to believe prove their weaknessess. They see lack of control, lack of motivation, lack of willpower.
Honestly, it’s absolute piffle. I haven’t come across a client that isn’t truly good at something…we are way more than we think we are. If the truth be told, it’s the ‘lack’ of strengths that we believe we have that causes so many problems.
Through discovering our character strengths, we can begin to see ourselves and all the good things we are.
THE VIA CHARACTER STRENGTHS QUIZ
The VIA character strengths quiz can be taken in about 15 minutes and is a simple way to discover your best personality traits – the strengths that you are most often expressing because you are simply being you!
We express our strengths and values on automatic for most of the time, so it can be difficult to see what makes you tick!
We often focus on the things we find challenging, looking for ways to improve our performance.
How about spending a little time really getting to see the sides of you that bring out the best in your personality?
I ask all my clients to take the VIA character strengths test, it gives us a fabulous guide during discussion and can also be helpful when making difficult decisions.
When we are expressing our top character strengths, we are being the best version of ourselves. When we are being pressured to do things that don’t feel natural to our unique self, we are coming from a place of discomfort, out of alignment with our passions and purpose.
As an example, until I explored my character strengths, I had never really considered that ‘perspective’ is one of my top character strengths. ‘Kindness’ may seem one of my more obvious strengths, but when I put these 2 strengths together, it is easy to see why I am a coach. I am expressing 2 of my top character strengths in the work I love to do!
VIA – (CHARACTER ON STRENGTH) shows on your report how each character strength shows up in your personality:
PERSPECTIVE
Being able to provide wise counsel to others;
having ways of looking at the world that make sense to oneself/others. KINDNESS Doing favors and good deeds for others; helping them; taking care of them.
Not only was it interesting to see why I do the things I do, but also, if something isn’t feeling in alignment with me, I can more easily understand why.
If I was making a decision about a career move, it would be helpful to understand what aspects of the job I was considering will support me in expressing my top character strengths.
It’s also important to know that we all have ALL 24 of the character strengths, the ones at the bottom of the list will likely only come into play when you are expressing one of the top strengths.
For instance, perseverance is no. 24 on my character strengths report, but if I am working on supporting a client, (expressing my top strengths), perseverance becomes my greatest strength!
Another factor is interest. If we are involved in something holds a great amount of interest for us, we will more likely pull on our character strengths from the bottom of the report!
The ones at the bottom of the list that you express when you are in your passions or curiosity, are known as ‘phasic’ strengths. It’s not that the ones at the bottom are weaknesses, more that they don’t typically show up regualrly in your personality, but when you are naturally expressing who you are, they rise to the top!
Another wonderful way to use your character strengths is by creating a list of all the times when you did something you felt proud of. Think of times when you felt really proud of something you did, or were a part of something that made a difference to someone’s life.
Also, include moments where you felt like you were exactly where you were meant to be – Moments that you can think back on and feel lifted or inspired.
Look at each of these moments and see what character strengths you were expressing at that time.
These moments are where you were being exactly who you are. It can be as simple as paying someone a compliment and it was exactly what they needed to hear, or when you were there for a friend or family member. Perhaps you planned a big trip or an event that was a success.
These moments serve to remind you of how great you are. Keep the list handy and when you feel yourself wobble, pull out the list and you’ll be reminded of how wonderful you are.
If you would like to take the VIA character strengths test, simply follow this link. It’s FREE.
https://www.viacharacter.org/
(you can pay to receive a more in depth report but the PDF download of your strengths is free).
It can be a little difficult to really utilise this tool if working alone, but having a friend or support person can really help you understand how working with your strengths brings out the best in you!
I would love to hear how learning about your character strengths has positively impacted your journey.
