Personal strengths: what are they and how to enhance them in therapy?

Each and every one of us knows that there are things that we are good at and that we are bad at.

Likewise, we all have aspects of our way of being that are remarkable both for better and for worse, and that are considered both positive and negative not only by us but also by our peers and even by our culture. In the first case we are talking about aspects that we consider or are considered to be our personal strengths.

But what exactly is a personal strength? Is it possible to train or improve it? In this article we are going to make a brief comment about it.

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Personal strength: definition and basic characteristics

Personal strengths are understood to be those set of skills, characteristics or aspects of type psychological or attitudinal in which we excel and that suppose some type of virtue or advantage adaptive. These are those capacities that represent positive and desirable elements in terms of personality.

For a characteristic to be significant as a personal strength, it must be cross-culturally recognizable as something positive and desirable, valued for its own sake and not only for its results, and capable of generating satisfaction for the person who has. In addition

they must also be measurable and have an unwanted opposite. Another necessary element is the fact that it is a stable characteristic, generalizable in the manner of act of the subject, and that it is remarkable in some people and not so much (or even non-existent) in others. They must be something exemplified and visible and there must be people who manifest it early.

Personal strengths have a strong cultural background, and are often linked to nearly universal values ​​and can even be linked to virtues. The study from psychology of this type of elements from the psychological field is relatively recent, being framed within positive psychology.

This is a current or movement within psychology that advocates the analysis and study of the factors that contribute to generating and maintaining well-being, focusing on these elements, being different from the more traditional approach in which the studies focused on the presence of mental deficits and disorders.

Within the analysis of mental strengths, the figures of Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (two fundamental authors within this field) stand out. paradigm), which even came to generate the Values ​​in Action Project and even a personal strengths questionnaire based on these studies.

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Examples of Personal Strengths

There are a large number of aspects that meet the necessary conditions to be considered personal strengths. The previously mentioned authors even came to draw up a list in this regard, although this It can be perfectly expandable depending on the values ​​that are considered positive in a way majority. Below we will indicate eight examples of personal strength that can be very useful to us in our day to day.

1. Capacity for teamwork

Probably one of the most demanded skills at the work level is also considered a powerful personal strength linked to interpersonal relationships and productivity. Being able to work in a team involves a lot of elements such as the ability to negotiate, but What stands out mainly is the fact of being able to coordinate one's own effort with that of others. to achieve a specific goal.

2. Hope

One of the personal strengths that help us the most on a day-to-day basis and when training and helping us achieve goals is hope, more specifically the ability to have it. This strength implies being able to look into the future and make positive predictions about it that serve as a guide. guidance and motivation to fight. This aspect is important: it is not only waiting for good things to happen, but also working to achieve them.

3. Mental flexibility and openness to experience

Mental flexibility and openness to experience, while not exactly the same thing and can be considered separate strengths, have a Common ground: in both cases it implies that the person is capable of accepting the existence of new possibilities outside of those previously considered. account. In the case of openness to experience there is also a component of curiosity, this being another possible personal strength.

4. Curiosity

Linked as said facts to the previous ones, curiosity is the force or impulse that allows us to approach learning, seeing or trying new possibilities. This interest in the new allows us to be more flexible, learn and have much more diverse experiences.

5. Impartiality

Linked to the concept of justice, impartiality is a strength that allows relatively objective judgments to be made. It implies being able to put personal opinions aside and make our judgment of the situation disregard our own emotional involvement in the case.

6. Persistence

Persistence or perseverance can be a personal strength of great interest. It involves the ability to start, continue, and finish a given course of action despite difficulties. Stay even if it is hard and fight for the objectives set without giving up.

7. Goodness

A complex concept but without a doubt one of the most recognized and difficult to maintain strengths. Kindness implies the ability to focus on helping the other, having a good disposition towards what surrounds us and pretending not to cause harm or harm to others. It involves some level of compassion and love. Sometimes also kindness, although many people have the strength of kindness without necessarily being cordial or kind in their treatment.

8. Love

One of the forces that moves the world. Mainly love as strength refers to the ability to give and receive esteem and positive emotionality in interactions with our loved ones and with the environment. Although strength is often centered on the ability to give and receive affection from others, being able to love oneself must also be included.

How to strengthen these personal qualities?

Each of us has their own strengths and weaknesses, and it may be more than advisable to reduce the latter and enhance the former. However, for many people it can be difficult. enhance and strengthen (forgive the redundancy) our personal strengths. In order to achieve this, both on a personal level and in the event that we are in therapy and want our patient to train them, the following issues must be taken into account.

1. identify the strength

Understanding which aspects of ourselves are a strength may seem intuitive and logical, but it is It is true that if we get down to it, in many cases we will find certain difficulties to find them. And it is that thinking about what we are good at is not as common as it seems, often not valuing or recognizing some highly recognizable aspects of our way of being and doing.

Thus, the first step to strengthen our strengths is none other than to make us aware of them. To do this, we can go to different sources of information, including our own perception of things we do and in which we we consider that we stand out and contrasting said beliefs with other people's opinions, or asking others and assessing if their opinion is correct.

2. Analyze the different factors that are part of it

In addition to being aware of what we are good at or what aspects of our being are most remarkable, it is advisable to try to fragment these capacities in such a way that we can see, already within said capacity, in which aspects we excel the most and in which it would be more advisable to work to enhance them even more.

3. Work on specific aspects

It is not feasible to indicate a unitary way of working on all the strengths, since these are different from each other and require specific ways and elements to work on them. For example, in the case of love, kindness or even teamwork bonding with others and emotional expression should be worked on, as well as some work in empathy.

In the same way, justice or impartiality may require practice based on exposing oneself to situations that involve dilemmas. ethical, noting the existence of different equally valid positions and taking into account the possibility of taking different courses of action.

Perseverance would require setting realistic goals and of the visualization, planning and preparation before possible difficulties, as well as ways to act in this regard.

Creativity could be trained through exercises that stimulate lateral thinking or with expressive therapies or in which art is used. The ability to imagine, read and visualize are also trainable and facilitate both this and, for example, the Curiosity (which we can also enhance through deepening the aspects that cause us interest).

4. Put your strengths to the test

To be able to empower ourselves, we not only have to know our strengths but also their limits. This implies exposure to the practice of activities and behavioral experiments in which we observe how far we can go and what it means to us, in such a way that we can work to try to improve ourselves.

5. train and practice

As with most things in life (for example, physical fitness or level of proficiency in a non-native language), what is not trained is often lost or degraded. That is why we must try put our strengths into practice with some frequency.

Bibliographic references:

• Clariano, S.M. and de los Rios, P. (2012), Health Psychology. CEDE PIR Preparation Manual, 04. CEDE: Madrid.
• Peterson, C. & Seligman, M.E.P. (2004). Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. OUP USA.
• Seligman, M.E.P. (2003). The real happiness. Barcelona: Bergara.