Monday, July 26, 2010

Using Your Strengths in Your Daily Life

I have been reading a book I won in a give-away when BUMPLES first started. It is called PARENTING BY STRENGTHS: A PARENT'S GUIDE FOR CHALLENGING SITUATIONS. It interviews several people who speak about different aspects of parenting.

In one chapter, Cathy A. Rodrigues talks about communication being a foundation of better parenting. She discusses different prinicples to effective communication, one of which is "use your strengths in your daily life." She asks the question, "What would you say if your spouse asked you, 'What do you think you're really good at?'" She goes on to discuss "signature strengths" as those things one does, and is good at, without thinking (Seligman 2002).

As I was reading, I was thinking that it would be nice to think about and know what my own signature strenths are and how I could use them to my advantage in writing. She suggested completing a survey, the VALUES IN ACTION SIGNATURE STRENGTH SURVEY (VIA) online. It is a free assessment that "helps you identify your top five signature strenghts." She further suggests that knowing these strengths can give you insight into why certain tasks or parts of your life are easier to accomplish and more rewarding. I have not done so yet but plan to check out the survey and see what it says about me. If any of you out there have heard of the survey or have an opinion, good or bad, please weigh in and let me know what you think. Thank you, BUMPLES MAGAZINE, for the great book!

2 comments:

  1. Hi Karin, I'm going to try the VIA assessment and will let you know if it reveals anything new to me. Thanks for the tip.

    Have a day that exceeds your expectations!

    Patricia Shirra
    Children's & YA Author

    Visit my blog at: http://patriciashirra.blogspot.com/

    Visit my web page at: http://home.comcast.net/~patriciashirra/psmainpage.htm

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  2. Let me know how it goes, Patricia! I still haven't had a chance to do it but want to as well.

    Have a great day as well and thanks for stopping by.

    Karin

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