Personal Strengths: the Definitive Guide with 200+ Examples

You’re guaranteed to get this question in an interview:

What are your personal strengths and weaknesses? 

If you prepare well, you will be able to rapid-fire three answers for each of your strengths and weaknesses. But after the interview, most people forget about this stuff.

What about you?

Can you name 3 of your biggest strengths and weaknesses right now?

People who discover and design their life around their natural strengths experience a higher quality of life. On average, they feel happier, more energized, and achieve more success.

That’s why in this article, you’ll learn exactly why and how to discover your strengths and weaknesses. This guide includes:

• What are personal strengths?
• Benefits of discovering them
• Tools to find your strengths
• List of strength categories
• List of general strengths
• List of skill-based strengths
• List of weaknesses
• Struggling to find yours?

So let’s dive in!

This post contains affiliate links, so if you buy something through my link, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Note that I only endorse products that I’ve personally bought and enjoyed.

What are personal strengths?

You can define personal strengths as the attributes, activities, or tasks you excel in.

For example, think about characteristic traits, like being sociable, charismatic, or open-minded. But also think about high-value skills you developed or natural talents you may have.

In other words: where do you have the edge?

What about weaknesses?

Weaknesses describe the traits and talents that you are less gifted with. In other words, you have to work harder to achieve results in these areas.

Personal strengths often come with weaknesses too.

For example, if you’re organized and structured, you may find it challenging to cope with last-minute changes.

So should you focus only on your strengths? Or should you focus on your weaknesses because you believe in the saying: ‘you are as good as your weakest link’?

Should you build on your strengths?

Most people perform better and feel happier when they do things they’re good at – even when challenges arise. And the opposite is true for doing stuff you’re not so good at. 

That’s a good reason to focus on your strengths.

But should you also devote some time to your weaknesses?

It depends.

Yes, if your weakness hinders your performance and there is no other way to manage it. For example, you should improve your time management skills if you often miss important deadlines.

And also, yes, if you want to challenge yourself to learn a new thing that interests you – even if that’s not your strength. For example, you may want to learn a new language or instrument.

I like to split it up into 80/20.

It means that I work 80% of my time within my strengths and use the other 20% of my time to strengthen my weaknesses.

Benefits of discovering your strengths

This work-related study reveals that people who work within their strengths feel more satisfied with their life. But why is that exactly?

Here are some key benefits of discovering and building on your strengths:

• More self-awareness – by knowing what you’re good at and what you’re not so good at. 
• More self-confidence – when you find your edge, you will feel more convinced about your capabilities.
• Feeling happier – understanding where your strengths lay allows you to come to terms with your weaknesses.
• Better performance – leaning into your strengths allows you to excel at what you do with less effort. 
• Understanding the perspective of others – learning about your strengths will also reveal the accompanying pitfalls, which enables you to see how others may perceive you.

The truth is that there are many more things we suck at than what we are good at. Knowing your strength enables you to design and live a better life.

Tools to find your strengths

There are a variety of ways to find your strengths.

Some of which are internal self-assessments, like the personal SWOT analysis.

Others are external, like the best personality tests, which provide many insights into your strengths and how they apply to your personal life, career advancement, and relationships.

Here is a list:

1. Self-reflect: Dedicate time to reflect on your life. Ask reflective questions like: When did you excel at what you did? What do you like to do most? And what do you seem to do effortlessly that other people struggle with?
2. Compliments: What do others celebrate you for? We often dismiss compliments because they relate to something that comes natural to us. But they often reveal what you’re great at.
3. 16 Personality test: This is my favorite test for rapid self-analysis. You get comprehensive insights into your personality traits, strengths, and weaknesses. You also get actionable tips to apply them to your career, relationships, and for self-improvement in general.
4. HIGH5 test: While the above personality test already reveals your strengths, this one can provide extra insights from a different angle.
5. Via Character Strengths: This strength test is slightly different and measures 24 character-based elements. This test is useful to better understand the strengths of your character, like bravery, honesty, and self-regulation.

Combine the insights from these methods to find out where your strengths lay.

To help you brainstorm or think about your strengths from various perspectives, let’s take a look at a list of categories.

List of categories to look for strengths

We often get stuck in our thinking because we only look at things from a limited perspective. And that counts for your strengths too.

This list can broaden your perspective and help you to think about your strengths differently. 

1. Physical strength – you may have incredible flexibility, coordination, or endurance.
2. Mental strength – like embracing uncertainty, persisting through challenges, and bouncing back from setbacks.
3. Character-based strengths – some examples include enthusiasm, courage, discipline, and a positive attitude. 
4. General intelligence – you excel in areas like math, reasoning, or vocabulary, for example.  
5. Emotional intelligence – you understand your emotions which, for example, allows you to stay calm under stress.
6. Social intelligence – you are the person who rallies people together and develops positive relationships.
7. Strategic thinking – you see the bigger picture and develop strategic plans around macro opportunities.
8. Executional skills – you are an action-taker.

Did you gain new insights to find your strengths? If not, let’s take a deep dive into a list of personal strengths and traits.

List of strengths

Can you discover three traits that you excel at?

1. Accurate
2. Action-oriented
3. Action-taker
4. Adaptable
5. Adventurous
6. Altruistic
7. Ambitious
8. Analytical
9. Articulate
10. Artistic
11. Athletic
12. Attentive
13. Attractive
14. Authentic
15. Balanced
16. Bold
17. Brave
18. Calm
19. Captivating
20. Caring
21. Charismatic
22. Charming
23. Communicative
24. Compassionate
25. Competitive
26. Confident
27. Considerate
28. Controlled
29. Cooperative
30. Creative
31. Critical thinker
32. Curious
33. Decisive
34. Dependable
35. Detail-oriented
36. Determined
37. Disciplined
38. Easy-going
39. Educated
40. Effective
41. Efficient
42. Empathic
43. Encouraging
44. Energetic
45. Enthusiastic
46. Ethical
47. Fashionable
48. Fast learner
49. Fearless
50. Fit
51. Flexible
52. Focused
53. Friendly
54. Frugal
55. Funny
56. Generous
57. Gentle
58. Good listener
59. Good-looking
60. Gracious
61. Grateful
62. Hard-working
63. Helpful
64. Honest
65. Hospitable
66. Humble
67. Humourous
68. Imaginative
69. Independent
70. Innovative
71. Intelligent
72. Interested
73. Intuitive
74. Involved
75. Joyful
76. Kind
77. Likable
78. Logical
79. Loving
80. Loyal
81. Masculine
82. Mature
83. Mindful
84. Modest
85. Motivated
86. Objective
87. Open-minded
88. Optimistic
89. Organized
90. Outspoken
91. Passionate
92. Patient
93. Perfectionistic
94. Persistent
95. Persuasive
96. Playful
97. Polite
98. Positive
99. Pragmatic
100. Precise
101. Principled
102. Proactive
103. Problem-solver
104. Punctual
105. Purposeful
106. Rational
107. Realistic
108. Reasonable
109. Relaxed
110. Reliable
111. Resilient
112. Resourceful
113. Responsible
114. Romantic
115. Self-aware
116. Selfless
117. Serious
118. Sincere
119. Skillful
120. Sociable
121. Spontaneous
122. Strategic
123. Strong
124. Supportive
125. Sympathetic
126. Systematic
127. Tactful
128. Talented
129. Team-player
130. Technological
131. Thoughtful
132. Tolerant
133. Trustable
134. Truthful
135. Understanding
136. Versatile
137. Virtuous
138. Warm
139. Well-rounded
140. Wise
141. Witty

This list focuses on traits, but there is another way to look at them. 

List of skill-based strengths

Do you have exceptional skills? You may have developed them through consistent practice or natural talents.

142. Cooking
143. Painting
144. Writing
145. Analyzing
146. Teaching
147. Accounting
148. Investing
149. Planning
150. Marketing
151. Podcasting
152. Coding
153. Hacking
154. Gardening
155. Photographing
156. Filmmaking
157. Video editing
158. Designing
159. Dancing
160. Drawing
161. Decluttering
162. Gardening
163. Landscaping
164. Sewing
165. Storytelling
166. Entertaining
167. Public speaking
168. Product ownership
169. Project management
170. Playing a musical instrument
171. And too many more to name…

List of weaknesses

The first step to addressing weaknesses is becoming aware of them. Awareness increases your ability to manage them.

Here is a brief list of weakness examples:

172. Aggressive
173. Aimless
174. Arrogant
175. Blunt
176. Bossy
177. Careless
178. Clingy
179. Discourteous
180. Dishonest
181. Disloyal
182. Greedy
183. Hateful
184. Ignorant
185. Immature
186. Impatient
187. Impulsive
188. Insincere
189. Irresponsible
190. Jealous
191. Passive
192. Pessimistic
193. Rude
194. Selfish
195. Shy
196. Stubborn
197. Tactless
198. Unfriendly
199. Unreliable
200. Uptight
201. Worried

These examples of strengths and weaknesses help you to discover your own. But what if you still can’t find yours?

Struggle to find your strengths?

What if you have tried all the tricks and tools to find your strengths but still cannot discover them?

Most people will dabble.

And if that sounds like you, here’s a tip: experiment. 

At some point, you need to try stuff out and get experience. Whether that means trying a new skill, career, hobby, or anything else that piques your interest.

In the worst case, you’ve tried something and gained a new experience and a new story to tell.

What’s next

Understanding your personal strengths and weaknesses allows you to leverage them to experience greater success, confidence, and fulfillment. That’s one of the reasons why self-discovery is an essential step to a higher quality of life.

Key takeaways:

• Personal strengths encompass attributes, traits, skills, wisdom, and talents that you excel in, while weaknesses represent areas that require more mental effort to perform.
• Focusing on strengths leads to more self-confidence, joy, better performance, and a greater quality of life.
• Use the 80/20 rule: Spend 80% of your time on activities within your strengths and 20% on improving weaknesses.

Dive deeper into your strength with the following resources:

• Best (free) personality tests, including insights into your strengths
• Top strengths tests to cover every angle if you seek more
• Best guided journals for on-going self-reflection

Take action: Use an internal and external tool to reflect on your strengths. Start with self-reflection questions to find your strengths. Then take the 16 personality test to get a different perspective on your strengths.

Unlock your strengths today!