Building on your strengths

Learn about your successes to become better.

Research has shown that people benefit significantly from positive feedback about their strengths and contributions.

The following article describes four tips for reflecting on successes.

1. Being aware of positive feedback

Some of us are well aware of critical feedback as it is easy to remember and somehow threatening and emotional. But often positive reflections on actions are taken for granted or even considered as uncomfortable. To hold moments of positivity in your memory practice might be necessary.

A method that helps is to capture these moments and even package them in notes. By collecting positive feedback, you can also identify patterns.

2. Ask more when receiving positive feedback

Rather than just taking positive feedback, you might ask follow-up questions to understand better and to dig deeper. Of course, a challenge is to ask this in the right way, which does not make you sound egoistic. 

Try to unpack vague comments and seek to understand what worked well for you and others in that situation.

3. Study and review your cases

If you receive positive feedback in person, take some time afterward to write and reflect on the case. You can even write it down in the form of a journal. 

With this time invested, you have a chance to reflect on your strengths and the possibilities to complement your weaknesses.

4. Practice to active your best self

In some environments, it can be hard to get any affirmation at all. A goal can be to find ways to show your best self in these contexts. 

You may require to think more broadly to bring what you have learned from being a valued contributor elsewhere back into your work.