Coaching practices for Goal Design Character Strengths
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Goal Design Character Strengths, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I’m trying to reach this goal by white-knuckling through the exact things I’m worst at, and it’s draining and stalling
- I already know what I’m good at, but I only ever use those strengths in the same few familiar places
- The very thing I’m best at turns on me under pressure
- I spend so much energy trying to fix my weak spots that my days feel like a grind against my own grain
- I’ve got a list of my strengths but it reads like a flat personality quiz
Practices that may help
- Set goals that build on your signature strengths
Design goals that let your top strengths be the primary vehicle rather than your weak spots.
VIA Character Strengths, Made Practical - Use a signature strength in a new way each day for one week
Apply one of your top character strengths to a context or relationship where you don’t normally use it.
VIA Character Strengths, Made Practical - Map how your strengths distort under stress
Identify the "overuse" and "underuse" of each signature strength — how they show up when you’re at your worst.
VIA Character Strengths, Made Practical - Use your signature strengths in a new way
Identify your top character strengths and deploy one of them differently each day.
Positive Psychology, Made Practical - Connect individual strengths to the broader virtues they serve
Understand which of the six VIA virtues your signature strengths express, and what that reveals about your character.
VIA Character Strengths, Made Practical - VIA Character Strengths, Made Practical
Peterson and Seligman’s VIA Classification identifies 24 character strengths organized under six virtues, and multiple randomized trials find that using your top "signature strengths" in new ways reliably increases well-being and decreases depressive symptoms. The effect is most robust when strengths are deployed in engaged, relational ways — not just recognized but actively applied. - Bridge from signature strengths to purpose
Identify the top two or three things you do better than most people and trace how they can serve something larger.
The Life Crafting Intervention: Scripting Your Future Self - Assign project phases to genius-matched people
Route early ideation to Wonder/Invention geniuses and execution phases to Tenacity geniuses.
The 6 Types of Working Genius (Patrick Lencioni) - Build a team whose combined strengths cover all four domains
Hire and assemble deliberately for domain coverage, not for people who think like you.
Strengths-Based Leadership, Made Practical - Lead from the relationship building domain — hold the team together
People strong in relationship building are the glue that holds a team’s cohesion under pressure.
Strengths-Based Leadership, Made Practical
Related concerns
- Via Character Strengths With My Team
Peterson and Seligman’s VIA Classification identifies 24 character strengths organized under six virtues, and multiple randomized trials find that using your top "signature strengths" in new ways reliably increases well-being and decreases depressive symptoms. The effect is most robust when strengths are deployed in engaged, relational ways — not just recognized but actively applied.
- Building A Strengths Team
Strengths-based leadership, developed by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie building on Gallup’s decades of manager research, holds that the most effective leaders invest in their own strengths and build teams whose combined strengths cover all four leadership domains — executing, influencing, relationship building, and strategic thinking. Gallup’s correlational research consistently finds that strength-focused teams report higher engagement and performance, though the causal direction is not fully established.
- Character Strengths Exercise
Apply one of your top character strengths to a context or relationship where you don’t normally use it.
Use a signature strength in a new way each day for one week
- Character Strengths Overuse
Identify the "overuse" and "underuse" of each signature strength — how they show up when you’re at your worst.
Map how your strengths distort under stress
- Develop Strengths Not Weaknesses
Move from average to excellent in your strength areas rather than from poor to average in your weak ones.
Invest more development effort in your strengths than in your weaknesses
- Finding Your Strengths
Find the recurring threads in your best moments to name the strengths that are actually yours.
Identify your core strengths through your own history
Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.