LC Exercise #1 Part 1: Top 5 Signature Strengths

My top five signature strengths are (1) appreciation of beauty and excellence, (2) leadership, (3) curiosity and interest in the world, (4) fairness, equity, and justice, and (5) creativity, ingenuity, and originality- surprising mostly because I didn’t realize “appreciation of beauty and excellence” or “curiosity and interest in the world” could be classified as a “strength”.

I also would never really describe myself as grateful or even as all that positive— normally when I’m being my most unenthusiastic and pessimistic self, people tell me how much positive energy I give off, and I’m always thinking “Where have you been? I was complaining the entire time”. And I don’t think it’s me not realizing it- trust me, once something annoys me, basically everything else does too- so I don’t really know if I completely agree with that, especially as my number one strength. The only reason why I kind of see that is because of my third strength, curiosity and interest in the world. When I’m even slightly interested in something, I tend to get extremely excited about it. Also, things like the universe, the world, and our existence are just fascinating to me, so that sort of makes me appreciative of them in a way. ^[1] I guess what I’m trying to relate it to is the quote “If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change”, meaning if we can appreciate the tiny little wonders of our world, we’ll be able to appreciate everything- Buddha had it all figured out.

I guess I appreciate things a little more than I realized, but besides that these all seemed rather accurate to me; I tend to like to be in control only because I have a hard time trusting anyone else to get it done the way I want it, I’m literally obsessed with traveling and I love learning and experiencing new things, I try to be as fair as possible I guess, and I definitely try to be different, so overall I agree with the test results.

I would like to think I’m authentic because I don’t feel the need to do things to please others. Obviously I don’t mean I don’t like to do things to make others happy, I mean I don’t like to be fake just so people will like me. I loved the quote, “We know our behavior is authentic when we can consistently say what we mean, do what we say, and say what is so when it is so”, and although I may not be perfect, I feel as though I follow that statement fairly well.

My actions, motivations, speech, and appearance are also quite consistent with my character strengths. I at least try to be true to myself in all aspects of my life, whether it’s stating my opinion on something or simply dressing the way I want to dress. The only area I can really think of that could use work is actually school life. I want to do my best and do well for myself, but a lot of times I also find myself trying harder than I normally would to compete with others. One of my best friends lives and breaths school- or more specifically grades- and at times I feel she has a negative influence on me. Most of the time I don’t really care how well I do on a test, I’m proud if I do well, indifferent if I do mediocre, and I laugh it off if I do poorly, but when I see how much she cares about her scores, I start to worry about mine- and I shouldn’t let that happen.

Otherwise though, I feel I’m pretty good at being me. Not to say that I’m this crazy non-conformist, but I definitely value individuality a great deal, which goes hand in hand with being authentic. I’m “unwilling to compromise [my] integrity in order to satisfy the expectations of others or win their approval”. And I’m proud of that.

^[1]Wow, I’m just so deep.