How do I know my strengths?
"Know your strengths" is one of my guiding principles, both personally and professionally. It seems an obvious point to make, but it's oddly forgotten many times: research shows that we are happiest doing work that draws on our strengths. There are ways to identify your strengths, besides just going on what intuitively feels right. Here are three scientifically backed options to help you understand your strengths and your personality.
I learned about this assessment when I took Dr. Laurie Santos' course "The Science of Well-Being" from Coursera during the pandemic lockdown. Taking this short survey of character strengths didn't yield any radically new insights, but it did help me connect the dots. My top strength "love of learning" fits completely with my entrepreneurial spirit in founding my own coaching business. The survey may help clarify any non-negotiables for you in your next job, or may help understand why you gravitate towards certain fields.
Developed by Ray Dalio and Adam Grant, this one takes a bit more time but yields interesting results that help us understand ourselves and how we work with others. Here's what the developers say about this assessment: "PrinciplesYou groups 28 archetypes into 10 categories representing a larger theme. Explore types you are similar to, and those you are not, to understand yourself and others in a new way."
3. Big Five
This personality trait assessment (also known as OCEAN or CANOE) has been around a while and there are shorter or longer versions. The Big Five provides a good overview of how open you are to new ideas and experiences, how goal-directed and organized you are, how much you are energized by the outside world, how much you put others' needs ahead of your own, and how stress-sensitive you are.
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As with any assessment, these shouldn't be used to limit us but to help us. If you're low on the extraversion scale in Big Five, for example, make sure your work includes plenty of individual work time. But, also know that — like all people — you may still need time for social interaction. When assessments are used as a crutch for us to make excuses ("I can't communicate with you at work because I don't like talking to people," for example), they're not being useful at all.
