{"id":1116,"date":"2014-04-14T13:39:58","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T20:39:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/?p=1116"},"modified":"2014-04-15T10:58:18","modified_gmt":"2014-04-15T17:58:18","slug":"your-signature-strengths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/your-signature-strengths\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Signature Strengths"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few years ago Martin Seligman\u00a0(former President of the American Psychological Association and developer of\u00a0positive psychology, a significant\u00a0force in the current mental health environment)\u00a0and Christopher Peterson came up with this notion of Signature Strengths – those qualities we are n\"strengths\"<\/a>aturally drawn to and which are considered to be positive (and have for millennia).\u00a0 There are 24 of these and it is possible to\u00a0visit a web site and go through a 30 minute\u00a0test that will give you a sense of your top signature strengths.\u00a0 You can access this test here<\/a>\u00a0(scroll down to the VIA Survey of Character Strengths).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Seligman describes these different strengths so well in his book Authentic Happiness<\/a>.\u00a0 In a more detailed discussion, Seligman and Peterson in their book Character Strengths and Virtues<\/em> (a book I purchased out of an excess of enthusiasm only to decide that the tome was helpful, but did not merit it’s size or price) break the 24 strengths into Six Categories: Wisdom and Knowledge; Courage; Humanity; Justice; Temperance and Transcendence.\u00a0 What I particularly appreciated about this material is similar to the value I find in Myers-Briggs psychological type.\u00a0 Many of us struggle with the belief that there is something about our basic nature that is inadequate.\u00a0 We aren’t smart enough, or clever enough, or spiritual, empathic, mentally tough, athletic or social enough.\u00a0\u00a0These\u00a0products of\u00a0“programing” we received from parental figures who, themselves, struggled with their own sense of defect and want, \u00a0leave us with an inflated sense of what is missing in our character and an altogether limited idea of our own personal assets.\u00a0\u00a0 The most successful, content people in the world have holes in their character and the most confused have great, though unmined, character strengths.\u00a0 Recognizing, and playing to, those strengths is a key to life satisfaction, as Seligman teaches.\u00a0 He suggests that we seek out work that allows us to exercise these strengths and indulge in recreation that lets us express them.\u00a0 Great advice in my book.\u00a0 I invite you to take the test linked above and explore it’s benefits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few years ago Martin Seligman\u00a0(former President of the American Psychological Association and developer of\u00a0positive psychology, a significant\u00a0force in the current mental health environment)\u00a0and Christopher Peterson came up with this notion of Signature Strengths – those qualities we are naturally drawn to and which are considered to be positive (and have for millennia).\u00a0 There are Continue reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[35],"tags":[17,18,31],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1116"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1117,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116\/revisions\/1117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}