Strengths

Do you feel like you spend most of your days dealing with issues or problems?  Are you looking for solutions or ways to make things better?  Are you looking to make an issue or problem go away?

While it can be said that most of life is dealing with problems, there is some basic goodness to that.  If we didn’t have problems to solve, what exactly would all of us do all day long?  Solving problems can give us purpose, and they are what drives most of us to be productive and giving people.

On the other hand, problems can be overwhelming.  Too many problems, not enough solutions.  Or, there is the question of prioritizing – which problem should be solved first?  Sometimes it seems so out of our control.

But I wonder among all of these problems – do we take the time to acknowledge the strengths and assets that we do have?  Instead of always concerning ourselves with problems and what is wrong, what about spending some time to think about what is right?  What is going well?  What do we do well?  What do we already have?  What do we already know?  Perhaps we need a little more balance here.  Would solving problems be easier if we first thought about the strengths and assets we already have?  I think it is at least worth a shot.

So, next time you go to work on a problem, think about your strengths.  Do you already have some of the resources you need?  Do you already have some of the skills you need?  Perhaps it will give you the boost you need to solve your problem more efficiently.  At the very least, it may also help to give you the confidence and motivation to keep moving forward, and that can be very helpful too.