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What are my strengths? Ask your friends

Updated

Ask three to five friends for one moment when you were at your best, then look for the strength that comes back in their stories. Research shows friends judge some of your traits, like intellect, more accurately than you do.

Why ask your friends, not a quiz

A quiz only knows what you tell it. In a 2010 study of 165 people, each rated by four friends and checked against behavioral tests, friends were the best judges of intellect-related traits; people knew their own anxiety better (Vazire). Your friends see what you do; you mostly see what you feel.

The method has a name: the Reflected Best Self exercise, developed at the University of Michigan and published in Harvard Business Review in 2005. You ask people from different parts of your life for short, specific stories of you at your best, then look for the patterns.

How to do it in a week

  1. Pick three to five people who saw you in different places: an old friend, a new one, a sibling, a coworker, a teammate.
  2. Ask each one for one moment, not an adjective: "When was I at my best? What happened?" (the questions that work).
  3. Read the moments side by side and name the strength each one shows: calm in a crisis, making people laugh, finishing what others drop.
  4. Keep the strengths that come back in two stories or more. Those are yours, seen from the outside.
  5. Use one on purpose this week, in a situation where you usually don't.

What a good answer looks like

"You're organized" tells you little. "When the venue canceled two days before the wedding, you called fourteen places and found a barn by dinner" shows a strength, the situation where it shows up, and why it matters to the people around you.

Send one link to your friends. Their moments land in one place, and you see the strengths that come back. Free. No app needed.

Ask my friends

Questions

How do I find out my strengths?

Ask three to five people who know you for one specific moment when you were at your best, then look for the strength that comes back in two stories or more. A test can add a second view, but friends see what you actually do.

Do my friends know me better than I know myself?

For some traits, yes. In Vazire's 2010 study, friends judged intellect-related traits more accurately than people judged themselves, while people were better judges of their own traits linked to anxiety and self-esteem.

What is the Reflected Best Self exercise?

A method developed at the University of Michigan's Center for Positive Organizations and published in Harvard Business Review in 2005: you collect short stories of you at your best from people across your life, then look for patterns.

Sources