My Personal Strengths: Navigating Life's Challenges

My top five strengths in order are Bravery, Forgiveness, Humility, Perspective, and Humor. I do think bravery as my top strength describes me very well and relates to me as well because I do speak up about my opinions without feeling any fear of judgement or disagreements and I do stand up for myself and my loved ones when injustice or discrimination arises. Hence why one of my close friends has talked about how calm my composure was when involving a road rage with a reckless driver and most of my classmates and friends tend to rely on me when it comes to handling difficult situations such as becoming a leader in a group assignment and a spokesperson for the group. I tend to forgive people for their mistakes quite easily, though depending on the situation, because I do know that people make unintentional mistakes in life and human beings are not perfect at all hence why I just sweep it under the rug. My friends told me that I’m a hot tempered person. However, they said that I do not hold grudges on people and I do calm my temper down rather easily.

I’m not surprised that humility is in my top five strengths list as I am not one to show or brag on any social media platforms about what I’ve had accomplished or what I have in life and do not typically give out information about myself or my accomplishments unless specifically asked. My family members and friends frankly do not know of my goals and some achievements in life at all as I find it unnecessary to talk about it for society to know and I tend to keep my goals private and personal to me. As for my strength perspective, I would not have expected to see it as one of my top strength because I have always told myself that I still have so many things to learn in life. That being said, a lot of people do ask me for life advices which I find weird as I do not consider myself the wisest person. Even my mom has come to me to talk about her frustration when it comes to her work life and she has always agreed with the advices I give her even though to me I seem mediocre at giving advice.

Last but not least, I was also surprised to see that humor is in my top five strengths list even though I do enjoy making people laugh, brighten up their mood, and overall just have a good time with overused jokes and internet memes. To my surprise, my family members and friends agreed that I have a good sense of humor and always successfully make them laugh quite frequently.

There are two strengths in my personality traits that pop into my mind when it comes to my mom which are perseverance and kindness. She always gets her work done even though there are people trying to ruin her reputation and deliberately find excuses to bring her down. Nevertheless, she perseveres and pushes through while never letting everyone stop her. How she is always putting my older brother and I first before herself. As for my older brother, the traits I would associate with him would be judgement and prudence. My brother is into political topics thus loves to debate with people, usually being his friends, and his girlfriend. He always looks at people’s different perspectives and tries to understand them. He does his research regarding about the topics first, compare it, and then forms educated and well-read opinions and thoughts before he acts and talks when it comes to political and educational topics. The strength I have in common with my mother is ‘courage’. As for my older brother and I, we fall under the two same categories which are ‘temperance’ and ‘wisdom’.

The only category that we don’t have in common is ‘transcendence’. The only member in my family that has helped me develop my two strengths which are humility and perspective throughout the years is my brother. He also does not like to show what he has accomplished and achieved in life which I find admirable hence why I strive to be modest just like him. Additionally, he loves to teach me about life in general and is always there for me whenever I’m stressed out about life which has led to me learning so much from him which I will always really appreciate. The only strength that I used to keep my relationship with my family strong is humor. I love to crack jokes and share internet viral videos to them even though sometimes I fail to make them laugh and instead they laugh at my stupidity which I’m okay with that as long as it makes them happy and brighten up their mood.

The first factor of how bravery manifests in my life is I enjoy helping or benefit people. Shepela and her colleagues (1999) agreed that prosocial behavior is essential part to contribute development of bravery and may produce one moderating variable. The second factor that contributes to bravery is social interaction with people. Even though social traits may be seem irrelevant to physical bravery, the role is noticeable when one tries to remember the previously discussed significance factors such as group cohesion, mutual responsibility, and modeling to encouraging people to develop brave acts (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). It seems that by fostering group interaction with people, social qualities in time will nurture to the individual’s brave behavior.

The last factor that contributes to my bravery is I have gone through so many difficult situations that have led to me developing bravery and self-confidence. I went through so many difficult situations such as being bullied during primary school, body shamed, being discriminated by my own race for not speaking fluent Mandarin, and being in a toxic friendship make me mentally stronger, grow a thick skin to block all the negativities, and increase my self-confidence. It appears that having a strong value system, hope, optimism, and self-confidence are the most essential psychological factors that contribute the development of bravery.

How bravery helps me achieve my goals in life is by allowing me to have self-confidence, taking risks, and strong leadership skills. Having self-confidence is one of important factors to achieve your goals in life. Trusting your capabilities, not caring what people think, and the ability to stand up for oneself are the keys to achieve goals in life for me. Many people are hesitant to take risks to achieve their goals because of embarrassment and rejection. As unpleasant as these end result sounds, majority of successful people would claim that failure is essential factor to growth, it serves as your stage of progression towards success, and encourages personal growth as well. Holding responsibility as a leader and having many people or your group mates rely on your leadership can very intimidating and stressful. Leaders need to put faith in themselves and the faith that others have stored in them. It is okay to admit what you don’t know and use your intuition and experience as guidance for you to make better decisions and guide you through the right path.