Strengths approaches

One of the core ideas of Positive Psychology is that everyone has particular strengths and if that we use them we will have a better life than if we don't.

Martin Seligman in his recent book Authentic Happiness identifies three different kinds of happiness:

The Pleasant Life, which is about maximising pleasures and minimising the pains. This can include shopping, drugs, sex, drink etc.

The Engaged Life, which is about knowing your signature strengths (see below) and creating a life which is based around them. This leads to job satisfaction, a loving partner, and family, and enjoyable pastimes.

The Meaningful Life, which is using your signature strengths to serve the cause of something that's bigger than you are.

Following from this is the idea that if we can identify our strengths and build our life around using them we  can build an engaged life and that if we use them in a way that contributes beyond ourselves we can create a meaningful life.

Strengths are those things that we do naturally well, that we enjoy doing and would choose to do even if we aren't paid to. They are things that feel that fit well with what we think about ourselves. They are also things that lead to a useful outcome (so watching TV probably isn't a real strength).

Alongside this, Donald Clifton and Marcus Buckingham at Gallup have analysed many thousand surveys of managers in business to identify 34 strengths and have created the StrengthsFinder questionnaire to help people identify their strengths. Gallup now carry out major strengths based development programmes in organisations around the world, linking this work to employee engagement and customer satisfaction measurement. Marcus Buckingham has gone on to write a number of books and has set up his own business speaking, writing and consulting.

In the UK, the focus on strengths based development has been at Leicester University with Alex Linley who has recently established the Centre for Applied Positive Psychology and runs the Personality Strengths project.

Martin Seligman and VIA Strengths

Seligman has identified 24 different signature strengths that each of us can have and he has grouped these under six headings:

Wisdom and knowledge - Cognitive strengths that entail the acquisition and use of knowledge.
Courage - Emotional strengths that involve the exercise of will to accomplish goals in the face of opposition
Love - Interpersonal strengths that involve tending and befriending others
Justice - Civic strengths that underlie healthy community life
Temperance - Strengths that protect against excess
Transcendence - strengths that forge connections to the larger universe and provide meaning

You can learn more about this classification at the VIA Strengths classification site including the full 24 signature strengths. You can find out about your own strengths at that site or at Authentic Happiness, Seligman's main site.

Gallup StrengthsFinder

The Gallup StrengthsFinder allows you to identify your strengths as well. It has more of a business focus than VIAStrengths.  The underlying idea behind Gallup's approach is that managers should focus on employees' strengths and build on those rather than trying to correct weaknesses.

You can find out more about the StrengthsFinder and see details of all 34 strengths at the Gallup site here.

You need to buy the Marcus Buckingham's book 'Now discover your strengths' to get an access code and use the StrengthsFinder which is at https://www.strengthsfinder.com/

Personality Strengths

In the UK, Alex Linley has been carrying out research into strengths and their development. He is taking a slightly different approach to both the VIAStrengths approach and the StrengthsFinder. He suggests that, rather than a limited number of strengths there are potentially several hundred and that the key is to find which ones are relevant to your particular situation. Linley has recently established the Centre for Applied Positive Psychology.

He also runs the Personality Strengths project which provides a range of on-line questionnaires to assess your potential strengths. You can find this here.