What are “personal” strengths? Go to www.authentichappiness.org and take the Values In Action (VIA) survey to discover yours. It is a free survey and you might be able to see better how these young people are using their strengths as the foundation of their livelihood. Reading how and what they are doing just might be the impetus you need to do the same thing for yourself.
Dr. Success Challenge: Take the VIA at http://www.authentichappiness.org/
I did not choose my first featured Xer just because I gave birth to her, but because so many of you have shared her journey since her birth. I am writing, of course, about Dana Goeglein http://www.la-vida-yoga.com/
Featured Strength: Love and Be Loved
What does the strength Love and Be Loved look like as a livelihood (when its does not look like the oldest profession)? Well, for Dana Goeglein it looks like developing a business where she teaches and guides others in the instruction of yoga and pranassage. What better way to love and be loved than to help someone love their body, slow their mind, and connect to their spirit.
She also transformed her love of coooking natural food — which she learned from Grandma Terzano — into a private chef service. Now, she did not just wake up one day in her mid-twenties and say “Oh, I’ll teach yoga and become a personal chef!” No, she built her budding business after discovering her interests, achieving a Master’s in Food Studies and Nutrition and graduating from a six-month program at the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts. She then felt ready to share and expand her personal yoga practice by completing a yoga teacher certification course.
What is important to learn from her process — and all those who will be featured — is that they started where they were, noticing what they liked to do. Dana did not consciously start out to use her strength. She started out doing some things she liked, and then struggled to figure out how doing what she liked, could look like a way to earn a living.
Does that mean Dana will be doing this same business when she is 50 — that she has found her “calling” and “purpose”? Maybe. Maybe not. What I can tell you is that the younger you know and apply your strengths, the greater the possibility you will create a life of higher satisfaction and happiness. Once you become aware of your strengths, you may not immediately know how to design a life using them all the time, but you will be very painfully aware when you are not living a life that allows you to use them. Some tension is good for growth, you know.
