The Strengths Practice
A simple, supportive practice for recognizing your real strengths, grounding your self-perception, and gently shifting the inner story you tell about yourself.
An Introduction to the Strengths Practice
“When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at begin to change.”
This practice was created מתוך a simple truth: noticing our weaknesses and flaws often happens almost automatically. But when our attention stays fixed on what is lacking, that focus begins to shape us. When we learn to recognize our strengths, those strengths become more alive and available.
What Is the Strengths Practice?
This is a short, personal, supportive exercise. It offers a kind of inner anchor and can help strengthen the way you relate to yourself.
There is an old understanding that what we focus on grows.
When we become aware of our abilities and good qualities, they become easier to access.
Practicing in this way can support real inner growth. You may feel its effect while doing the exercise itself, in the short and medium term, and also over time.
The Practice
- Choose several clear qualities or strengths that truly exist in you: creativity, kindness, wisdom, precision, devotion, generosity, humor, and so on.
- Choose one strength and write a broad, general definition of it.
- Define it without using the word itself.
- Write the definition as if you were explaining it to someone who does not know the term and wants to understand it.
- Define it in a general way, not in relation to yourself personally. In other words: what kind of way of being or acting would make a person someone who has this strength?
- Write five examples from your life in which you expressed this strength as you defined it. Let the examples be specific, real moments in which you acted from that quality.
- Give yourself enough time to gather five to ten strengths that feel especially meaningful and important to you. Define each one and add examples for each.
How to Do It Well
This practice needs to be rooted in truth. Look for qualities that genuinely live in you.
Each of us has a wide range of strengths, but sometimes it takes time to notice and fully acknowledge that a certain strength is already present.
You can do this gradually, in your own time. You may choose one strength whenever you encounter it in yourself, and only then write about it.
Behind every perception stands a story.
Are you willing to improve the stories you tell yourself about who you are, so you can live with more happiness and fullness?
If so, this old practice was made for that very purpose.
Working with strengths can help shift your inner narrative. It helps you notice the good that is already there, to see what already exists and where it is already being lived, instead of letting your attention return automatically only to what is missing.
Who Is This Practice For?
A conscious practice of looking at your strengths can be helpful for anyone.
At every age, it is good to know how to value ourselves.
This practice can also be adapted for work with children. It can be meaningful to help them see their own abilities and strengths.
It is equally suitable for adults and older adults.
At any age, it is valuable to know, recognize, and strengthen the qualities we carry.
After the Strengths Practice
Notice how a more positive self-definition can create inner space: space to be, to feel, to make mistakes, and to hurt—while still remaining held and protected in your inner home.
Going On From Here
It is worthwhile to notice any improvement in your sense of self-worth. See how changing your definitions can create more freedom, how broader and more spacious definitions can help you live more truthfully from within and see life in a more positive way.
You may also begin to feel that life responds to you differently.
It is recommended to keep noticing the real strengths that exist in you, and to continue growing through them.