Text Size A A A

The Practice Corner

OK, Now What? Taking Action

Ryan M. Niemiec, Psy.D.
Education Director, VIA
Ryan on Twitter

"OK - Now what?" This is a common question practitioners ask after they have identified a client’s strengths. Many times, it is the same question that the client is asking, after taking the VIA Survey and receiving his or her rank-ordered list of 24 character strengths.

The following three-step process provides you a larger framework for working with strengths: Aware, Explore, Apply.

1.) Aware: The first step of any change process – whether this be self-directed change or therapist-supported change – is awareness. This crucial step involves getting the language of strengths down and seeing some of the labels as being attributed to oneself. This step answers the question, “What are my strengths?” and begins to answer the question, “What strength was I just using?”

2.) Explore: This is the phase in which the client connects the strength labels in a deeper way to his or her past and current experiences. It begins to shed some light on who the client really is and what really makes the person tick. This step involves solitary reflection, pondering, and journaling, as well as interpersonal discussion and co-exploration. Ask your client questions about a strength you observe in her or him or about any of the 24 strengths in the client's VIA Survey results.

•    How do the results fit for you? What is your gut reaction?
•    What surprises you most about the results?
•    Do the top five resonate for you as signature strengths? In other words, do you feel these are the core of who you are and that the strengths give you energy when you practice them?
•    When have you used that (curiosity, fairness) strength in the past?
•    When you think about a time when you were functioning at your best, which strengths did you use?
•    When you think of a time when you were anxious, depressed, or highly stressed, which strengths did you use to move forward?
•    Consider your past or current mentors (or role models or paragons). What strengths did they embody? How did they express them?

3.) Apply: This step involves the client beginning to use his strengths in daily life. This is the action phase. The client moves from reflecting and thinking to doing. A coach or therapist might start with the question, “Which strength are you interested in applying in your daily life?” Another angle is to directly point out themes that have emerged in the exploration questions: the practitioner might point out that hope and perseverance seem to keep popping up in discussions, that the client seems to use self-regulation well at work but not at home, or the theme that the client frequently overuses his curiosity and under-uses his creativity.

Some clients will immediately know what to do with their VIA Survey results and begin using their strengths in new ways and building up strengths they’d forgotten they had. Many other clients will benefit most from the creation of a concrete “action plan” that is integrated into their goals.

If the client wants to become a more strengths-oriented person, one part of their action plan may be that she consciously identify strengths in her environment and in each interaction she experiences or observes, e.g., her spouse showing kindness, the grocery clerk displaying prudence, the movie character displaying fairness, and her boss displaying judgment/open-mindedness.

Some clients will want to set up a mutual validation/reinforcement system in their relationship or family interactions. For this approach, the client and a family member write one another’s top strengths down and commit to pointing out, encouraging, and giving positive feedback each time the other uses a character strength. Example: “Good work, that’s using your perseverance!” or “I’m noticing your fairness strength coming out here.”

Repetition and moving forward
Repeating these three steps is encouraged and highly recommended…and in any order. In fact, they function best when they are repeated frequently. Repetition underscores practice and practice is the key to developing any of the character strengths. 

Practitioners would do well to keep these three steps in mind in each client interaction. If the client has just taken the VIA Survey, then jump into some exploration questions. If you and your client have been processing a few of these questions already, then it might be time to create an action plan. Remembering these 3 words will help you move from a “stuck” point of not knowing what to do or say next and help you keep your momentum going.

For more articles by Ryan, see News.