Personal Power: part 1- the strengths link

(you can also watch this presentation on our Youtube channel)

Dear Claire ,

I feel so frustrated by the ups and downs of my attitudes about myself, and my behaviors towards my life goals. Some days I have so much self belief, and feel like I can accomplish anything. Then other days, it's like I am in complete sabotage mode, I feel frozen with fear and am left not really liking myself that much. How can I more consistently access my own person power, both to achieve my life goals, and just to like the person who I look at in the mirror?

Sincerely,
Pleading for Personal Power
Ballston Lake, NY

Dear Pleading,

What an honest, vulnerable, and thought-provoking question about the dynamic concept of “Personal Power”! As I began crafting my response, I realized this topic is so robust and multilayered that it could fill an entire book!

So with that in mind, I’ve decided to break my response down into a series of letters back to you instead, each letter addressing a different subtopic linking back to the theme of Personal Power. Over the next week or so, I’ll post these Personal Power-themed letter responses on the Clairapy blog, and maybe chit chat about it on our social media channels! I’d love to hear which concepts resonate most with you, and why!
So to start, what is Personal Power?

Personal power is a collection of positive traits unique to an individual that make them naturally appealing or compelling. Personal Power is often used to influence or motivate others and/or to achieve favorable outcomes in life.

For our first subtopic, let’s start with what I believe is the foundation of Personal Power...

Theme I: “The Strengths Link”
In order to utilize and omptimize your personal power, you need to:
1.) Be acutely aware of your own strengths.

2.) Be willing to apply them in your daily life, and knowledgeable about how to do that.

A great starting point to identifying and learning about your personal strenghts is the VIA Character Strengths Survey, a free personal assessment survey that uses empirically driven measures to ultimately report out to you your greatest unique strengths, along with areas where you are weaker. Further research into VIA revealed that people who live their lives within this strengths-based framework experience greater happiness and well-being, a stronger sense of purpose, better relationships and health, less stress, and improved goal attainment.

By focusing on your strengths as your primary drivers, not only will your daily life feel more manageable and enjoyable, but you’ll also reduce the tendency to make unhealthy comparisons to
others, by being more focused on and connected to your individuality.

Conversely, if you identify your strengths and then realize that your goals, objectives, and strategies are not well-matched to your strengths, you can at least begin to understand why things have felt so challenging for you in accomplishing goals up to this point, and start to rethink your approach.

The strengths link is a simple and solid start to the rich and complex conversation that we’re embarking on.

Stay tuned for my next letter: PersonalPower Part II: The Shame Link

In the meantime, thank you SO much for reaching out and helping give our readers this great content to relate to and learn about.