Each and every one of us knows that there are things that we are good at and bad at. Likewise, we all have aspects of our way of being that are remarkable for both good and evil, and that are considered both positive and negative not only by us but also by our fellow human beings 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 fortress? Is it possible to train or improve it? In this article we will make a brief comment on this.

Personal strength: definition and basic characteristics

Personal strengths are understood to be that set of skills, characteristics or aspects of a psychological or attitudinal nature in which we excel and which involve some kind of virtue or adaptive advantage. These are those abilities that represent positive and desirable elements as far as personality is concerned.

For a characteristic to be considerable as a personal strength, it must be recognisable in a cross-cultural way as something positive and desirable, valuable in itself and not only for its results, and be capable of generating satisfaction to the person who possesses it. Likewise they must also be measurable and have an undesirable opposite . Another necessary element is the fact that it is a stable characteristic, generalizable to the subject’s way of acting, and that it is remarkable in some people and not so much (or even non-existent) in others. They must be something that can be exemplified and visible and there must be people who manifest it in an early manner.

Personal strengths have a strong cultural background, and are often linked to virtually universal values and may even be related to virtues. The study of these types of elements from the psychological point of view is relatively recent and is 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, as opposed to the more traditional approach in which studies focused on the presence of deficits and mental disorders.

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

Examples of personal strengths

There are many aspects that qualify as personal strengths. The authors mentioned above even went so far as to draw up a list of them, although this may be perfectly expandable depending on which values are considered to be mostly positive. Below are eight examples of personal strengths that can be very useful in our daily lives.

1. Ability to work as a team

Probably one of the most demanded capacities at the work level is also considered as a powerful personal strength linked to interpersonal relationships and productivity. Being able to work in a team implies a large number of elements such as the ability to negotiate, but mainly highlights 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 helps us the most in our daily life and when it comes to training and helping us to achieve goals is hope, more specifically the ability to have it. This strength implies being able to look towards the future and establish positive predictions about it that will serve as guide 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 and can be considered separate strengths, have a common ground: in both cases it implies that the person is able to accept the existence of new possibilities unrelated to those previously considered. In the case of openness to experience there is also a component of curiosity, this being another possible personal strength.

4. Curiosity

Linked as 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, to learn and live much more diverse experiences.

5. Impartiality

Linked to the concept of justice, impartiality is a strength that allows for relatively objective trials. It implies being able to set aside personal opinions and make our judgement of the situation not take into account 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 initiate, continue and complete a given course of action even though difficulties may arise. To stay even when it is hard and to fight for the goals set without losing heart.

7. Goodness

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

8. Love

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

How can these personal qualities be strengthened?

Each of us has our 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 to enhance and strengthen (worth the redundancy) our personal strengths . In order to achieve this, both on a personal level and in the case that we are in therapy and we want our patient to train them, the following issues must be taken into account.

1. Identify the fortress

Understanding which aspects of us are a strength may seem intuitive and logical, but the truth is that if we put ourselves to it, in many cases we will find certain difficulties in finding them. The fact is that thinking about what we are good at is not as usual as it seems, often not valuing or recognizing some highly recognizable aspects of our way of being and doing.

So the first step to strengthen our strengths is none other than to become aware of them . To do this, we can turn to different sources of information, including our own perception about things we do and in which we consider that we stand out and contrast these beliefs with other people’s opinions, or by asking others and assessing whether their opinion is correct.

2. Analyze the different factors that are part of it

Besides being aware of what we are good at or what aspects of our being are most outstanding, it is advisable to try to fragment these capacities in such a way that we can see, already within this capacity, in which aspects we stand out 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 all the strengths, being these different from each other and requiring specific ways and elements to work them. For example, in the case of love, kindness or even teamwork , the link with others and emotional expression should be worked on, as well as some work on empathy.

Similarly, justice or fairness may require practice based on exposure to situations involving ethical dilemmas, noting the existence of different equally valid positions and taking into account the possibility of taking various courses of action.

Perseverance would require setting realistic goals and visualising, planning and preparing for possible difficulties, as well as ways of acting on them.

Creativity could be trained through exercises that stimulate lateral thinking or with expressive or art therapies. The ability to imagine, read and visualize are also trainable and facilitate both this and for example 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 have to know not only our strengths but also the limits of these. This implies exposing ourselves to the practice of behavioural activities and experiments in which we observe how far we can go and what it means for us, so that we can work on trying to improve ourselves.

5. Train and practice

As with most things in life (e.g. physical fitness or proficiency in a non-native language), what is not trained is often lost or lowered. That’s why we should try to put our strengths into practice with some frequency .

Bibliographic references:

  • Clariano, S.M. y de los Ríos, P. (2012), Health Psychology. Manual CEDE de Preparación PIR, 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). Authentic happiness. Barcelona: Bergara.