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Learn to Use Your Strengths In New Ways — Customized Recommendations From happier.com

Doug Hensch — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:03:31 +0000

Several years ago, I developed a workshop to help people discover their strengths and use them, effectively. The participants enjoyed the process of discovering their top strengths and talking with their fellow participants about how they may have used them in the past. They were usually surprised and excited by some of the strengths, as well.

But, there was almost universal difficulty in determining how they might use these strengths in new ways or apply them to their current roles. We have been trained to fix weaknesses. It’s easy for our manager to have us take a class on time management if we’re a little disorganized or read a book on empathy if we’re not reading the emotional signals of our colleagues, friends, or family.

happier.com has partnered with Dr. Tayyab Rashid to bring specific recommendations to our subscribers who complete the Use Your Strengths exercise. Our latest version of this powerful exercise gives you over 200 recommended activities from Dr. Rashid. In addition, happier.com sends you a short survey after you have been using your strength in a new way for at least one week to gauge the effectiveness of the activity. Over time, you build a prioritized library of activities to help you continue to build on your strengths.

So, what are you waiting for? Take the VIA Survey and get working on those strengths!

happier.com is a personal trainer for your happiness. With more than a dozen tools and tests to help you measure, track and improve your happiness, you can trust the happier.com experts to help you reach your goals. Exclusive videos and a popular blog mean there’s something new to learn every day. Download the free iPhone application or find what you’re looking for with the Positive Psychology Practitioner Directory. happier.com is on Facebook, LinkedIn, and twitter and has meetup groups in Washington, Philadelphia, and Portland, with more planned. Click here for a social media press release from our launch.

Tuesday’s Tip – Stop using your strengths

Doug Hensch — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:59:40 +0000

Several years ago I had a Vice President who was full of energy and optimism. He was also very kind and had an “open door” policy where he was more than willing to chat with any one of the several hundred employees in his group about anything. In fact, you could talk to him about anything and he always seemed to have time for you.

I don’t know if he ever took the VIA Survey, but I would guess that some of his top strengths were:

Hope, optimism, and future-mindedness
Creativity, ingenuity, and originality
Forgiveness and mercy
Curiosity and interest in the world

In fact, he knew his strengths and he used them often – unfortunately, too often. And, while he was a very likeable person, he was a pretty ineffective leader. He consistently did not acknowledge risks or issues. He loved creative ideas but was easily bored with operational issues. He rarely fired anyone for poor performance. In addition, he really didn’t know how to adapt to situations. He continued to use his top strengths even when he wasn’t getting results. His organization eventually fell into disarray.

In recent years, we have heard the experts tell us to use our strengths. And, Robert Biswas-Diener wrote a great post about using our strengths in the ‘right’ situations. But, how do we know when we’re over-using a strength?

Unfortunately, I think over-used strengths usually represent a blind spot. That is, they’re difficult to recognize. Remember, using a strength usually feels good. We are engaged when we are doing something that we’re good at and we frequently go into a state of flow where time stands still. This can lead to situations where we lose our self-awareness.

Try these two strategies to examine the use of your own strengths:

Look at situations where your initial thoughts were that you performed at a high level but the results did not follow. Did you misjudge the reactions of others? Did you miss some cues? List your top strengths and see if any of them actually contributed to the poor outcome.
Ask for some feedback from people who know you well AND are not afraid to tell you the truth (that second part is VERY important). Take the VIA Survey to identify your top strengths. Share this list with your friend(s) and ask if you rely on these too much.

In the end, don’t abandon your strengths. The research shows that use of your strengths can lead to lasting happiness. Just try to exercise a little more self-awareness and consider the situation.

Six New Ways to Use Your Strengths

happier.com — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:40:27 +0000

By invited author Robert Biswas-Diener

1. Use Your Strengths Less!

Although, at first blush, this is a counter-intuitive piece of advice it makes a lot of sense. Our strengths interact with situations and may or may not be appropriate to every circumstance. When i work with coaching clients I find there is often as much traction in dialing down a particularly strength as there is in accentuating another. At CAPP we think of this as “the right strength, in the right amount, at the right time.” This is what Barry Schwartz says about wisdom– it is a “meta-strength” and tells you when and how to regulate the other strengths.

2. Use the Strengths You Didn’t Know You Had!

Most folks are pretty aware of what they might consider their “top 5″– that is, those strengths they commonly employ to good effect. These are the things we all receive compliments on and we know well. But what about unrealised strengths? At CAPP, we think of these as natural strengths that are energizing and which lead to maximal effectiveness, but which you are not currently using. The Realise2 strengths assessment distinguishes between realised and unrealised strengths. This latter group is ripe for development.

3. Swap Your Strengths and Your Learned Behaviors for Increased Energy!

Your learned behaviors are those skills you have adopted, perahps becuase your job or relationships have required it. You tend to be good at these behaviors and they help you enjoy the success you have. Unfortuantely, becuase they are not natural to you they can require extra effort and leave you deflated at the end of the day. The Realise2 also distinguishes Learned behaviors. At CAPP we emphasize that while you may not be able to do without some of these you might want to practice moderating their use so that you are not drained by them.

4. Use Your Strengths to Target Your Weaknesses!

Don’t give weaknesses lip service…. actually deal with them. Your weaknesses are like a leak in a boat, you have to manage them or you will sink. Fortunately, you can employ your strengths in a variety of ways to accomplish this. You might use your strengths to compensate for or overcome your weaknesses; you might use your strengths to find collaborations with others that better address your weaknesses; you might use your strengths to make your weaknesses irrelevant.

5. Challenge Ben Franklin!

Okay, so Ben adopted a strengths a week and rotated through his core aspirations over the course of weeks and years. he got so good at it that his friends couldn’t shut him up and recommended he add “humility” to the mix! What about you? Can you rotate through your “top 5″; choosing one a week as a theme through which you view problems, setbacks, decisions and plans?

6. Strengths spotting

Recognizing strengths in yourself may come easily for folks who use happier.com, but what about others, for whom the vocabulary of strengths is a bit more…. foreign? You can gain traction by labeling every instance of a strength or passion you see in others. Be vigilant for that straight posture, increased gesturing, more fluid speech, use of metaphor and brighter facial expressions. Point out and label each strength as you see it in play. But be forwarned, the larger your own strengths vocabulary is, the more you will be able to spot in your friends, clients and colleagues.

Use Your Strengths Less: Not All Strengths are Appropriate for Every Situation

happier.com — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:24:08 +0000

Use your strengths less!

Post by invited guest contributor Robert Biswas-Diener

For most people, using strengths is second nature. We are all naturally inclined to gravitate toward situations in which we will excel and we tend to leverage our best abilities for greater achievement. In fact, using strengths can seem so obvious a strategy for success that some people avoid working on strengths altogether! For these people, it seems sensible to focus on weaknesses for the pursuit of personal growth.

In recent years, however, a growing body of research suggests that working with your strengths can be a strategy for success. For example, the most successful managers tend to spend disproportionately more time with their top producers relatively to their lowest producers. In addition, engaging personal strengths is associated with more intrinsic motivation and, therefore, more happiness. I have even seen how much more effective I am as an instructor when I focus on my students at Portland State University who are in the C, B and A range.

What this line of research has translated to—where positive psychology is concerned—is a push toward “using your strengths more.” I have seen blog posts encouraging folks to use their strengths more and attended trainings that promote the same approach. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this advice it may not be the entire story. What most people forget is that, as individuals, we interact with the world around us. Although strengths are a natural part of us, our strengths interact with situations and circumstances. Simply put, not all strengths are appropriate to every situation. Sometimes using a strength less, rather than more, can help you be far more effective and result in greater satisfaction!

This week try gaining more mastery of your strengths by thinking about the most appropriate way to use them. As you consider the challenges and circumstances of the near future which of your strengths do you think you can put into play more, and which might you want to dial back? If you have a particularly good story about overusing a strength, feel free to e-mail me.

Thank God It’s Monday – Putting the Best-Seller to Work Through Positive Psychology

Andrew Rosenthal — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:52:02 +0000

Wouldn’t it be great to create a workplace employees, customers and management all loved? This is the question that frames the new book by Roxanne Emmerich, Thank God It’s Monday!: How to Create a Workplace You and Your Customers Love. Emmerich’s book has reached the best-seller list recently, ranking in the top-10 on lists from Amazon.com, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. In her book, Emmerich chronicles real companies where motivational “kick-butt kick-offs” led to transformational changes in attitude, productivity and earnings.

While the language and the stories in the book are uniquely hers, Emmerich’s strategies draw on key tools from within positive psychology. She directly refers to Martin Seligman’s “profound research” documented in Learned Optimism as having a significant role in changing the tenor of a workplace. In fact, there are a number of positive psychology tools, some available on happier.com, to help put the “TGIM” strategy to work.

Enthusiasm: Light That Fire in Your Belly

Enthusiasm is a “moment-by-moment choices” explains Emmerich. And for plenty of workers, it can be a hard choice to make. How do you get out of a rut and become contagiously enthusiastic? Here’s an easy way to start:

Discover, and use, your strengths. Getting started is easy — every single person has a set of top strengths. There’s no heavy-lifting here. Just take the free VIA Strengths Survey and get instant results on your top strengths. Then, put them to work. Focus, each day, on using one of your top strengths in a new way during work. Doing this is fun — these are things you’re already good at — and it can be pretty easy. And if, at first blush, the strength doesn’t seem like it’s relevant to work, then find a way to make it so. Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence doesn’t have to be a walk in the park — take a moment to recognize a colleague’s achievements. And Self Regulation can mean checking your email every 2 hours instead of every 2 minutes. Find a way to use one of your strengths in a new way during work. Within no time, you will be more enthusiastic. It’s fun, lasting and authentic.

Want more guidance? The Discover Your Strengths plan on happier.com provides tests, tools and assistance to make it easier.

Giving: Ignited Spirits Through Profound Service

Emmerich points out that “customer satisfaction” isn’t good enough, especially if they are weighing “satisfaction” against a lower price elsewhere, when deciding where to do business. “Customer success is what matters: making a lasting difference, transforming your interactions from a simple business transaction to a profound exchange between two human beings that creates a transformation of more success for the customer.”

As you begin giving, put a number to your progress. Track and measure your results. In addition to asking “Have I made a difference?” try taking the free Positivity Test, developed by Barbara Fredrickson, at the University of North Carolina. Better yet, take the test before you start giving. Try and establish a baseline. Then, once you start giving, take the test every day, for a week. Then take it every few days. Surely, your results will bounce up and down a bit. But if you’re really giving, and if you’re achieving customer success, your positivity ratio will increase. And you’ll be increasing the positivity of others.

Learned Behaviors Are Not Strengths!

happier.com — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:30:30 +0000

Post by invited contributor Robert Biswas-Diener

I once coached a woman who was exceptionally creative. She had a head for sales and was a whiz at putting together trainings to teach young sales associates how to perform better. She was so good, in fact, that she was quickly promoted to a management position. The problem was, she did not shine at management the way she had excelled at training. As a result she had to learn all sorts of new behaviors—confrontation, assertiveness, administration, detail orientation—that would help her succeed in the new job. My client was bright and she quickly learned these new behaviors and even did them well. There was only one problem: at the end of the day she felt deflated instead of energized.

The Realise2 strengths assessment distinguishes between realised strengths—those strengths you find energizing and use frequently—and “learned behaviors.” Learned behaviors are acquired skills that a person can learn to perform well, but they do not come naturally and the extra energy and effort required to use them leave a person feeling flat. People often acquire these new behaviors because their roles or circumstances have changed. Learned behaviors are frequently necessary for good performance. Using them too much, however, can lead to dissatisfaction and burnout.

This is one of my favorite aspects of the Realise2. And, if our client response is any indicator, one of everyone’s favorite aspects of the assessment. We used the Realise2 with a large organization recently, to help them with recruitment. They loved the fact that the assessment was able to distinguish between people who would be good at their job while loving their job and those who would be good at their job but hate it.

So what should you do about your own learned behaviors? At CAPP we recommend “moderating” them. You will probably need to use your learned behaviors sometime, but see if you can limit the amount of time you use these draining behaviors. Consider the outcomes that are attached to these behaviors—how are they paying off for you at work or in relationships– and see if you can achieve these same valued outcomes by using your realized or unrealized strengths instead.

To take the Realise2 visit www.cappeu.org. If you would like to find out more about how I use this assessment with my coaching clients just drop me a line or leave a comment on this post.

International Happiness Day is July 10 – Five Ways to Celebrate

happier.com — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:55:30 +0000

Tomorrow, July 10, 2009 marks the first ever International Happiness Day. Organized by a diverse group of faculty, practitioners, and enthusiasts, the effort’s goal is to get people focused on happiness.

Why is it in important to focus on happiness?

Intentionality matters. David Pollay writes that “it’s up to us” to pursue happiness.
Happiness is contagious. Research shows that knowing someone who is happy makes you 15.3% more likely to be happy yourself.
The science of happiness is evolving. The recent World Congress on Positive Psychology was the springboard for the 51% challenge. Enable flourishing.

Five ways to celebrate international happiness day:

Brag. No, seriously…. participating in the Your Happiest Moment contest by sharing a picture of you at your best.

Do something for yourself. Is an old grudge dragging you down? Still caught up in something from months, or even years ago? Confront the past grudge with accuracy and honesty with the Letting Go of Grudges exercise developed by Dr. Martin Seligman.

Do something with others. Meetup groups about the science of happiness are growing quickly. HappierPhilly gets together in two weeks. HappierDC has 80 members. Emiliya Zhivotovskaya leads the the 400-person strong Happiness Club NY. Lionel Ketchian’s HappinessClubs.com lists opportunities for seniors, teens, and everyone else to get involved on a local level.

Discover your strengths through the free VIA Strengths Assessment on happier.com or through other groundbreaking tools like the Realise2

Have a happiness party. For instructions, visit the 5,000 person+ happiness day group on facebook.

Any other suggestions for how to celebrate International Happiness Day? Feel free to leave comments!

Secret Strengths: Discovering the Strengths You Didn’t Know You Had

happier.com — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:55:30 +0000

By invited author Robert Biswas-Diener

When I assign my students at Portland State University to the task of taking a strengths measure many of them shrug their shoulders and ask “why.” The common wisdom seems to hold that most of us already know our strengths, are already using our strengths, and that strengths are not places of personal growth. One student put it bluntly, saying “I am really creative. A strengths assessment isn’t going to help me be any more creative.” Interestingly, the Realise2– the new strengths assessment from my colleagues at CAPP–show pricely the opposite to be true. Instead of identifying only those areas where a person is particularly shiny it also highlights what we call “unrealized strengths.” Unrealized strengths, simply put, are those strengths at which a person excells, are personally energizing, but which are seldom used. They are untapped resources that lie dormant, just waiting to be harnessed for success.

Why might we have important strengths that we do not use? One reason is that we simply do not have the opportunities to use them all that often. Take the example of one of my own unrealised strengths; that of “narrator.” Narrator means that I have a gift for telling stories. I can communicate information through story very effectively, making it emotionally resonant, entertaining, and informative. But not so long ago I had relatively few chances to actually use this strength. I certainly told a lot of stories when I was with my friends– and it felt great when I did– but I didn’t have many opportunities to really use these narratives to full effect. Once I recognized and accepted this talent as an unrealised strength I started looking for places I might use this in my professional life. I began integrating stories into my academic presentations, my writing, and my interactions with my coaching clients. Since that time I have become more engaged with my work and happier.

My students often have a similar type of revelation. They read their Realise2 results and think to themselves “Wait a minute, is this a strength I have?” From there they graduate to accepting their unrealized strengths, then looking for opportunities to use them, and finally a degree of mastery of these shiny resources. In the end, strengths are tremendous areas of growth but it is not those obvious strengths, the ones we use every day, that we should focus on for development, but those that are waiting to be dusted off and used!

To learn about your own unrealized strengths take the Realise2 strengths assessment by visiting www.realise2.com. To learn the difference between unrealized strengths and learned behaviors feel free to drop me an e-mail at robert@cappeu.org and I will send you a description.

(Typo updated 6/24/2009.)

Tuesday’s Tip: Use your strengths in a new way (and, thank your dad!)

Doug Hensch — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:33:04 +0000

About halfway through my senior year in college, my dad asked what my plans were for after graduation. I was not looking forward to this conversation because I was considering taking a degree in economics and turning it into a career as a college football coach. “Exactly how much does a college football coach make? How will you be using your economics degree?” were some of the questions I anticipated from him.

Trying to head off his questions, I quickly told him I was thinking about giving coaching a try and that the starting salaries are pretty low but I could do really well once I established myself. My father responded without even hesitating: “Do what you like and the money will take care of itself?”At that point in my life, I didn’t realize that people like Martin Seligman and Chris Peterson were doing groundbreaking research on strengths and how their use positively correlated to engagement and meaning.

So, off I went. Coaching did not end up being my long-term career choice but I am incredibly grateful to my dad for giving me the courage to follow something about which I was passionate. I have changed career paths several times. At each stop, I learned a little more about myself. I turned down several promotions and better-paying opportunities along the way because I was more interested in working roles that were interesting and challenging.

The payoff has been tremendous. I can honestly say that I have enjoyed each job that I have taken and found new ways to use my strengths along the way. And, the fact that I was able to use my strengths led to more productivity on my part and much higher job satisfaction.

If you are in between jobs or just trying to find ways to make your current role more satisfying, take the VIA Survey, determine your top five strengths, and look for ways to use them every single day. In these difficult economic times, we all need to find ways to make ourselves more valuable to current or potential employers. Working in your strengths is a great way to improve your productivity, passion, and value to your employer.

Please let me know how you are using your strengths in your role.

Martin Seligman: Help others use their strengths

Martin Seligman — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:19:04 +0000

A happier.com user asks:

Dr. Seligman:

How do I help someone else to use their strengths?

For more information on assessing and exploring your strengths, take a strengths assessment on happier.com or use the exercise Learn to Use Your Strengths.

Thanks for your question.

Go over the VIA list of strengths with your friend and then ask how much your friend feels these things for each strength:

A sense of ownership and authenticity (“this is the real me”).

A feeling of excitement while displaying it, particularly at first.
A rapid learning curve as the strength is first practiced.
Continuous learning of new ways to enact the strength.
A sense of yearning to find ways to use it.
A feeling of inevitability in using the strength (“try and stop me”).
Invigoration rather than exhaustion while using the strength.
The creation and pursuit of personal projects that revolve around it.
Joy, zest, enthusiasm, even ecstasy while using it.

This is an alternative way of helping someone discover their signature strengths. If one or more applies, have your friend pounce on this strength and use it more.

-Marty