Strengths-Based Resolutions for the New Year
Make it stand out
What makes a good new Year’s Resolution?
What makes a good resolution?
I have heard people moan about New Year’s resolutions. It is often said that most people don’t make it to February with their resolutions from the new year. The idea of self-make-overs is certainly exploited by marketers who will seize any opportunity to sell you something and encourage you to compare yourself to an impossibly superior frame of reference. This usually involves versions of beauty that are rare and often photoshopped, and not realistic. It can also involve high standards for personal productivity and organization or self-actualization. The perfect version of you involves and a shopping list for things that can make that happen.
What makes a good resolution? Does it have to involve identifying every area of our lives that is lacking? Psychologist Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania, who founded the Positive Psychology movement, has researched happiness and sources of satisfaction in people’s lives. His book Authentic Happiness talks about signature strengths. Seligman proposes that we are happiest when we are putting our signature strengths to best use. His approach to being your best involves looking inward to identify those things that we not only are good at but that we drive satisfaction from. Identifying strengths can help us spot where we need to focus our time and energy, and if possible, our career.
Perhaps New Year's resolutions should begin with identifying strengths, rather than discrepancies. Perhaps if we know ourselves, and employ our signature strengths in setting goals we will come closer to that best version of ourselves.
Link to Authentic Happiness Website
https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/home
https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/questionnaires/brief-strengths-test
https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/testcenter
The first form on the list is the full version of the Authentic Happiness Inventory is 240 questions long and took me 20 minutes to complete. You will need to create a login for this version and it will save your results. I took the test for the first time in 2015 and again this year. The top strengths are the same for me even though I have grown and changed since then my signature strengths remain the same. The task for the new year involves putting them to their best use.