Focus on your Strengths to increase your Well – Being

 Think about the times that you have felt your best at work or at play. It usually revolves around using your strengths. Yet, we tend to spend so much of our time focusing on improving our weaknesses.

One of the key ways we enjoy life, have fun, feel good is to use our strengths. This is especially true in our work life. In 1958 George Gallup found that Career Well-Being and focusing on our strengths is the one distinction that allows us to live a long healthy life. The Gallup Company continues to do research on the value and benefit of using strengths in all walks of life.

Marcus Buckingham, with his newest book, Find your Strongest Life, reports,

  “In the past four decades, women have secured better job prospects,
greater acknowledgement for achievement, wider influence, more free time,
and higher salaries. And yet, recent studies reveal that women have gradually
become less happy than they were 40 years ago, and less happy than men—and
unlike men, they grow sadder as they get older.”  

Marcus Buckingham, similar to his other books, suggests that if woman focus on their
strengths they are happier. They don't just try to balance life, but devote their energy
towards using their strengths.  An interesting idea to consider, but the notion of the paradox of high expectations and abundance still aren't answered.

This goes for children as well. In the similar book focusing on children, the benefit of focusing on kids strengths far outweighs focusing on their weaknesses in terms of self-esteem, confidence, and willingness to work hard to accomplish a goal.

Take this simple idea and bring more joy into your life by focusing on your strengths both at work and at home. Involve your family and co-workers and ask them what your strengths are and reciprocate by sharing your impressions on their strengths. With your strengths in mind find ways each day to apply them and notice how you feel and the effect it has in both producing results and contributing to having a great day!