Recent Posts
Mentorship May 20, 2020
Building yourself up, personally and professionally.
Depending on yourself is never easy. But the key to personal and professional success is self-empowerment. This comes from growing and honing your personal strengths. Here are some self-empowerment techniques to get you started.
Knowing who you are is half the battle, so ask yourself: What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? Be honest with yourself. Then, focus on and cultivate your strengths.
Want to find your character strengths? Take this survey from the VIA Institute on Character to identify them. This survey is used by companies around the world, like Coca-Cola and IBM, universities, healthcare companies, and even the U.S. army.
In an article from the U.S. News & World Report written by Nancy Willard, she identifies this survey as one of the things parents can do with their adolescents during stressful times like the COVID-19 pandemic to help build resilience.
“You and your teenage child can complete the survey to find your top strengths. Then, both of you can intentionally use one of your strengths every day. Encourage your child to journal about their use of one of their strengths or talk about this together. Your family can each also pick a new strength you want to develop every day,” Willard said.
While Willard’s point is primarily about self-assessment during times of global stress and trauma, the idea of identifying and cataloging strengths is something we could all do every day. This is one of the main things that people do when they keep a bullet journal; track behavioral patterns and thoughts.
Some of the character strengths included in the survey are:
Once you know what you’re good at, you can use those strengths in a variety of ways.
The way you see yourself affects more than just your mental health — your personal experiences and self-image can shape and reshape your neural networks, and affect your lifespan.
Positive emotions lead to better health, which is why it’s vital to have a strong personal foundation. Working on building feelings of integrity, joy, resilience, and more creates this foundation. And here’s the thing: the process of welcoming positive emotions can be really simple.
If you want to feel more loved, make an effort throughout the day to acknowledge when someone treats you with kindness or goes out of their way to make you happy or make your life easier. If your desire is to thrive at work, start your day working on projects at which you excel. Beginning the workday with a task that makes you feel capable and confident will give you the willpower and drive to tackle more difficult tasks later on.
Let’s say that one of your weaknesses is that you get stressed out very easily. How can you counter that weakness with a strength? It takes effort, but the result is worth it.
Make a direct effort to implement stress relief into your daily lifestyle. Practice deep breathing and relaxation, and continue to affirm your strengths and values. The first step to self-empowerment is making an effort to address the aspects of yourself and your life that you want to change.
After you’ve identified the weaknesses that you want to work on, try to pick out the positive parts of that weakness and spin them into strengths. In an article in Everyday Health, they give some examples of how to do this:
“If, for example, you are the type of person who likes to be in charge and does not work well with others, you may decide to turn this weakness into a strength by starting a charitable group that will help people.”
This technique is great, but for it to work, you need to be mindful of your weaknesses every day, which may at first feel unpleasant. No one likes to admit that they’re not good at something, and acknowledging your weaknesses every day can be draining. But, practicing turning your weaknesses into strengths and focusing on the positive needs to be repeated to make it a habit.
Ultimately, self-empowerment comes from using your strengths to build a positive, productive, and loving life. This empowerment can only come from within, and no one else can do it for you.
Counter your weaknesses with strengths. Build a strong personal foundation. When you like and believe in yourself, empowerment is easy.
