What are Your Character Strengths?

If you're stuck in a rut at work, take time to identify your character strengths to increase your overall level of happiness. Determining your strengths can also make it easier to identify new opportunities and advance your career. If you're not sure how to identify character strengths and use them to your advantage, here is what you need to know.

The VIA Institute on Character uses six broad categories to classify character strengths: courage, humanity, justice, transcendence, temperance, and wisdom and knowledge. Within these categories are 24 character strengths. You have all of these strengths to some degree, but your signature strengths are the ones that define your character. In humans, the most common character strengths are kindness, fairness, judgment, honesty and gratitude. Prudence, modesty and self-regulation are the least common.

A variety of self-assessment tools are available to help you inventory your strengths. Gallup's StrengthsFinder assessment is one of the most popular. If you don't want to sit down and take a test, there are other ways to discover your signature strengths. For example, pay attention to how you feel when you are working on different projects. If you still aren't sure about your character strengths, ask your colleagues to provide insight.

Once you identify your character strengths, use them. If you have a love of learning, indulge it by taking a class or attending a job-related conference. Spark your creativity by doodling or painting a picture. If kindness is one of your core strengths, volunteer at a soup kitchen or help a co-worker with a difficult project. It doesn't really matter what you do as long as you exercise your strengths in some fashion.

Communication skills and the ability to use a computer are great, but they're only a piece of the puzzle when it comes to achieving success at work. You need to use several character strengths to get along with others and persuade people to adopt your point of view in tense situations. In fact, the character strengths most compatible with work are zest, fairness, honesty, perspective and judgment.

It may not surprise you to learn that men and women have different character strengths. Men tend to score highest on hope, curiosity, gratitude, honesty and humor, while women tend to score highest on kindness, love, fairness, gratitude and honesty. It's also possible to use certain strengths to improve your mood, especially if you are stressed out. Zest, hope, love, curiosity and gratitude seem to be the characteristics with the strongest links to happiness.

If you are ready to move to the next level of your career, assessing your strengths can help you get where you want to go. Because character strengths are linked to success and happiness, it's important to find out which ones affect your work.

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