Personal Strengths Intro: What are Your God-Given Strengths?

This is a question that seems easy to answer to some people, I mean who doesn't love to brag about themselves!

Personally, I don't. Actually I get a little embarassed when other people say good things about me. But now that I am not in school anymore and I am in the "real world," it's even harder for me to find my own strengths, other than the usual ones that coincide with education and such. Matter of fact, it seems like now I focus more on my weaknesses and the things I lack and need to improve. I would definitely say that I do a lot of self-introspection and most of the time all I can see are the negative things about myself.

But I really want this to change. As I am reading for work about whats called the "strengths-based" approach and how I can apply it with my clients, I am realizing this is something that I need to do for myself as well! The strengths-based approach emphasizes a person's strengths, the innate knowledge, resources, skills and abilities they have to accomplish their goals. It seeks to empower people and understand them based on their strengths, not their problems and weaknesses. People aren't seen as hopeless and helpless but as survivors and experts of their own lives and how to cope with the challenges in their lives.

I like this approach. It's different from most of the theories I learned in school. I guess I have adopted what's called the "medical" model in the helping profession, where the focus is on pathology and disease (problems and weaknesses). I have adopted that into my own life as I place more emphasis on the things I need to change verses my strongpoints.

Now I realize why sometimes this is difficult to do with my clients! I need to do it for myself.

Sidenote: That's why I love my field! I love the fact that I can learn about myself and in turn share it with people I serve and be a blessing to them. I also love that even though I am not perfect and I have a lot of growing to do, God still blessed me to be a part of so many different people's lives.

My roommate encouraged me to value every interaction with a person. Even if you have a 5 minute conversation with someone, make it count. Try to really listen to that person and make a connection, even if it's a small one. I want to make every person that I talk to feel special, feel loved. I want to highlight the good things about them, the God-things about them.

Ok, I'm going off on one of my tangents again, but bottom line is I am going to focus more on the good things that God has placed inside of me as well as others'. I am going to use others' strengths to build them up and empower them to change if that's what they want to do. You may be seeing more posts on this as I dive into my personal strengths and gifts. I am giving myself some space, this is MY sweet escape lol, to build myself up.

I suggest you take this journey with me as well. It'll be fun!