3.16 (V) Try This At Home - Know and Grow Your Strengths
[MUSIC] One of the main interests in positive psychology which comes out of out interest in flow is work on character strengths. So we're very interested in what your five highest strengths are. So on the website authentichappiness.org, there's something called the VIA Signature Strengths test. So to do this, I'd like you all to go to the website, take the VIA Signature Strengths test, it's free. This will tell you what your five highest strengths are. So they might be something like gratitude, fairness, humour, social intelligence, and the like. So that's the background for this excercise. So you know what your five higher strengths are. And two and a half million people have taken these tests. So there are highly valid and will tell you what your best in and this not about talent so it's not about IQ or perfect pitch. These are about the human virtues. Okay, so you know what your highest strength is. Now here's part two of the exercise. I'd like you all to close your eyes. Now think of something that you have to do at work. Once a day or frequently that you don't like doing. Okay, open your eyes. Okay, now let me tell you about the exercise. Your job is now to, knowing what your highest strength is, to think of a way of doing this thing you don't like doing using your highest strength. Now let me illustrate this in a way that will make sense to you. So, one of my students at the University of Pennsylvania, would study in Van Pelt Library until midnight every night. And then he had to walk from Van Pelt to 52nd and Baltimore at midnight. This is a long, dark, dangerous walk. And this is the part of the day that he dreaded the most. So when he closed his eyes that walk came to mind. So his job was to take his highest strength and make the walk using it. So turned out his highest strength was humor and playfulness. So what he did was he bought a stopwatch and a pair of roller blades, and declared that the walk was an Olympic event. And he would time it every night trying to best his personal time. And so he did this, and he found that he liked doing it very much, it made the walk much easier. And then when he got to his Olympic best time, he would take a longer route like a high hurdles to do it. So the point of this exercise is to take things you don't like doing and find the lone cut your highest strength. Now, turns out when people do that, six months later they're less depressed and they have higher life satisfaction. So this is the theme of knowing what you're best at. Knowing your highest strengths, and using them more at work. Designing your life, not to correct your weaknesses, but to use your highest strength more.