Desperately Seeking Strengthskeepers: Can You Help?

We need our strengths to make it through the most difficult times. Yet even in the best times, it can be difficult to remember what our strengths are and how we might use them. And it only gets harder when we are feeling disoriented, anxious, and alone as so many of us are during this time of global pandemic. 

To help us recognize and remember our strengths, every family, team, or community needs its own Strengthskeeper. Could that person be you? Or perhaps you and a partner or two? 

“Keepers” are people who take care of things. Housekeepers make sure that household chores and duties are completed. Peacekeepers take responsibility for helping people manage their conflicts without fighting or violence.  We use phrases like “keepers of the dream” to describe people who do not let us forget our most important values and principles.  And now I encourage you to make way for a new and urgently-needed kind of keeper – the Strengthskeeper.

Strengthskeepers make sure that people are frequently reminded of the strengths within themselves and one another. Any pair or group of people who are trying to work together towards a common goal will need help remembering their strengths. Our strengths are the positive ways that we think, feel, and behave. They are the inner resources that we have to deal with challenges and overcome adversity. Using our strengths energizes us and restores our well-being. It is impossible to be successful in any effort without using and sharing strengths.

Something that is this important to both our resilience and our wellbeing is too important to be left to chance, yet that is what we most often do. We hope that people will remember their strengths instead of making an effort to make sure that they do. This is the reason we need Strengthskeepers – lots and lots of Strengthskeepers! — to step up during this time, and for the rest of time. Reminding people of their personal strengths is a job that should never be left vacant.

You don’t have to be an expert in strengths coaching or positive psychology to be a Strengthskeeper. You just need to be willing to help the people you care about stay focused on remembering what is best inside of them and how that can be used to help themselves and others. Strengthskeepers learn as they go. Both adults and youth can do the job well. Sometimes all that is required to be a good Strengthskeeper is to ask the people in your circle of care a simple question that helps them remember the unique, individual strengths that they already have inside of them. Other times enjoyable, uncomplicated activities can be planned that help people to refocus on understanding and sharing their strengths.

Going forward, I’ll be using this www.allourstrengths.com site to share easy and effective ways for you to be a Strengthskeeper in your corner of the world, so please keep checking here for new resources and ideas. Also be sure and bookmark the www.viacharacter.org site for the best and most current research and information on the science of character strengths. Right now, they are sharing some wonderful, free tools to help all of us use our strengths to face the challenge of COVID-19.

If you have not already taken the free, scientifically-validated VIA Character Strengths Survey* to identify your own signature strengths, what are you still waiting for?  It takes 15 minutes or less to complete the assessment online and it is available in multiple languages in versions for adults and youth. 

Once you have an idea of what your signature strengths are, start thinking about family, friends, and others in your world. Who can you inspire to take the VIA survey? Who can you help to remember  and contribute their strengths? Who and where can you serve as a Strengthskeeper? You can start your Strengthskeeping duties today by sharing your own VIA results with some of the people in your circle of influence. Encourage them to take the survey and share their results with you. Talk with each other about how your top 5 to 7 strengths (a.k.a. your “signature strengths”) are showing up during this time of pandemic.  How might you help each other to use these strengths during this challenging experience?

Now more than ever, and for a long time to come, the world is going to need all our strengths, but we need the Strengthskeepers of the world to help make it happen.

* These 24 Character Strengths are ©Copyright VIA Institute on Character. Used with permission. All rights reserved.