STRENGTHS PROFILING
WELCOME
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Welcome to our interactive strengths profiling page. Here, you can use different tools and resources to identify your personal strengths, think about those you'd like to build upon and consider how they can benefit both you and those around you.
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How to use this page...
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As a rough estimate, this page could take around 45 minutes to complete, but take it at your own pace. It's OK to take less or more time than that. We'd strongly recommend having another way of recording your input on this page as what you enter can't be saved. Perhaps you could use:
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The notes section on your phone
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Pen and paper
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A separate Word document.
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Before we get started, take some time to think about your own personal strengths that are important to you right now. It's a good idea to have a brainstorm and to begin jotting down some ideas as they come to mind.
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It might be helpful to think of a time or situation when a strength of yours has helped you in some way.
At this stage, write down as many as you can think of just now: you can always come back and add to it later.
PERSONAL STRENGTHS
When we talk about personal strengths, we mean the best qualities of your personality: the things that make you, you!
What is it that you're good at? What do you enjoy the most? What do other people compliment you on?
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EXAMPLES
Let's take a little bit of a closer look at some examples of personal strengths, so that we can appreciate the broad range of qualities that different people might bring to a situation.
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You might be good at...
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Using your money wisely?
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Looking after your health and well-being?
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Being assertive?
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Staying calm?
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Keeping motivated?
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These are all examples of some of the personal qualities that people may make use of at different times in their life. Hopefully it's given you a bit of inspiration as to the range of strengths that different people might have.
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Photo by De'Shonda on Reshot
MEANING
When we talk about our personal strengths, it's a good idea to think of the ones that are the most important and meaningful to you in your life.
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Everyone is different and we all possess a unique blend of personal qualities; so what you bring to the table might be very different to what someone else does.
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Here's an example of how we can put meaning into a strength:
If you're good at managing your money, this could help you to manage the tenancy on your own place.
How can we use our personal strengths in everyday life?
STRESSFUL SITUATIONS
Photo by Natalia Almeida on Reshot
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When we face challenges through difficult situations, our personal strengths can help to build our resilience and protect us from the effects of stress. For example, strengths such as positivity can help us to remember that although things might be difficult just now, they can get better.
RELAXATION
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Our strengths don't always need to be active and energetic. Some of the most valuable strengths come in the form of learning how to take time out to 'switch off' and relax. A really useful personal strength to help you to relax is the ability to slow down your thoughts. Listening to your favourite music or going for a walk are great ways of doing this.
SOCIAL LIFE & RELATIONSHIPS
Photo by Anna O on Reshot
A valuable strength is the ability to make friends and enjoy having an active social life. Social relationships are important not only in terms of hanging out with your friends, but for learning the importance of good communication skills, such as listening, being empathic and having the confidence to speak up and give your opinion.
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
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When we think about our own personal development, there are many strengths that we can draw upon to help us to achieve our goals. For example, if we are determined, motivated or good at setting goals, we are well equiped to begin moving towards our targets. Some examples of real-life situations where we might be working on our personal development include learning how to write a CV, applying for a job or looking for a flat.
Use this space to take some time to think about how your personal strengths can help you in some way. Choose one strength and write down some examples of situations in the past where you have used that strength to help you to achieve something that was important to you. Or, you could write about a situation where you imagine that a strength would come in handy. Don't forget to make your own copy, as your entries can't be saved on the website.
MY STRENGTHS IN A SOCIAL CONTEXT
It's helpful to think of your strengths as they relate to other people, because they might sometimes involve how you interact with those around you. For example, someone's strength might be in being an excellent listener. This can be really helpful when making friends, as a way to build trust and rapport.
Now that you've identified some of your own personal strengths, start to think about whether any of these could help someone in your life.
It could be a friend, family member, teacher or someone you work with.
See what Olympic, World & European Championship goal medalist Jessica Ennis-Hill had to say about a strength that is important to elite athletes.
I’m proud of the way I've dealt with setbacks. It's hard when you feel down and you think, 'Why is the world doing this to me?', But you have to pick yourself up again. That's what makes you a better athlete.'
Olympic, European & Commonwealth gold medalist Denise Lewis reminds us how important it is to put things into a social context.
'You're never by yourself.'
For example, say you're good at keeping in touch with your friends.
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This could really help someone who you maybe haven't heard from in a while. They might be feeling down and that's why they haven't been in touch.
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You could suggest having a phone call or video chat, to catch up on what you've both been up to. By finding different ways to stay in touch, this could help to boost your friend's mood.
Imagine you have an entire wall covered in sticky notes. You can take a blank one, write down a strength that you can offer to someone else and leave it on the wall. In turn, you can take someone else's sticky note and make use of their strength.
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For example, if you are feeling a bit down, you might choose to make use of someone else's positivity, while in return offering someone else a great listening ear.
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This idea was inspired by a post from Mindful Schools.
World, European and Commonwealth gold medalist Paula Radcliffe highlights one of her personal strengths.
'I try not to worry about things that I can't control.'
Take some time to think of a strength that you could call upon to help someone specific in your life. Below, write down what the strength is and how it could help that person.
In the space below, you can write down up to 3 strengths that you already have, or that you'd like to improve on. To do this, you can use the sliders to indicate your current level on this strength and where you would like it to be. The sliders range from 1 (not very strong) to 10 (very strong). In the text boxes, you can plan for any changes you'd like to make to help you to work on your strengths.
For example, your strength might be: 'I'm a caring person'. You might already rate quite highly on this strength; but you might be able to come up with some new ways of working on it. So, one of your goals might be to make a hot drink for someone, or help a close friend or family member with their food shopping. When you plan to work on your strengths, it's a good idea to think of something that you can begin doing right now. To find out more about setting goals to work on, you can check out our tool and practise by using our interactive goal-setting page.
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LET US KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS
We hope young found this interactive page helpful for identifying and working on your personal strengths. You can keep using this page to reflect on your strengths and we also recommend keeping a personal copy, as the work on here can't be saved.
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Just as a reminder, we also have a Strengths Profile tool included in our free Mental Skills Training Toolkit. You can also check out our blog post on strengths profiling.
Finally, we'd love to know what you thought of this page. How helpful did you find it? What else could we have included to make it more informative? Were there any technical glitches? Please leave your feedback in the box below and press send :)