Signature Strengths Martin Seligman made a list of 24 attributes that tend to be correlated with happiness, and that aren’t culture specific. The goal is for you to find out which one of these are your strengths.
The full list is below:
He asked people to use one of your top strengths in a new and different way every day for one week. Then he compared their happiness over time compared to a control group. Here is what he found:
And the effect on depression:
Flow How do you know you’re in flow?
- You’re working on challenging but attainable goals. Not deliberate practice.
- Strong focused concentration on the activity
- The activity feels rewarding
- You have feelings of serenity
- Loss of self-consciousness
- Losing track of time passing
- Lack of awareness of physical needs (e.g. hunger)
Generally, we are at our happiest when in flow. A study showed being in flow makes us happier than during leisure. The Good Parts of What We Want What should you look for in a job?
- One that makes use of your signature strengths. Those are the ones in the VIA survey.
- One that increases your flow