I think we all have a superpower.  

Maybe it’s making warm, crusty bread or doing your daughter’s hair like Rey from Star Wars or bringing contagious energy into a room or telling the funniest well-timed jokes.

I used to think I got skipped in the superpower department.  Fluent in languages? No.  A master of memorization? No. Perfect vision? Nope. Perfect anything? Nice try. Hand-eye coordination? That’s adorable. ANY coordination? Um….. definitely no.  

I’m not saying I can’t DO stuff.  I just can’t do it at superpower level. 

But lately I have been embracing a rather unusual and super nerdy superpower.  

I can take what I learn from any passage of anything I’ve read or listened to and curate it into a bite-size bit of notes.  I can then turn those notes into a lesson, a lecture, a homework assignment, a group activity, you name it. 

Basically my brain thinks in worksheets.  And I am constantly looking for them. 

I have a fifteen-year-old manual about resiliency that, over the years, has become a sort of bible to me.  

Whenever I’m stuck on how to help someone, something in that book gives me an idea to work with.  

We’ll talk about resiliency another time, but the last time I used that manual was for a list of personal resiliency builders.  Strengths.  “A menu of personal qualities that help people bounce back from adversity.  No one has all of these.  Everyone has a few that are their individual lifelines for overcoming.”

On that list, my notetaking falls under “love of learning”. And even though I’ve never thought of it as my ‘individual lifeline for overcoming’, that is exactly what it is. 

Part of what drew me to positive psychology in the first place is the study of these kinds of strengths – people’s individual lifelines for overcoming. 

Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology, calls them ‘signature strengths’, and says your signature strength has the following hallmarks:

• A sense of ownership and authenticity (“This is the real me”)
• A feeling of excitement while displaying it, particularly at first 
• A rapid learning curve as the strength is first practiced
• A sense of yearning to find new ways to use it
• A feeling of inevitability in using the strength (“Try to stop me”)
• Invigoration rather than exhaustion while using the strength
• The creation and pursuit of personal projects that revolve around it
• Joy, zest, and enthusiasm while using it

Sounds like a superpower to me.  I can’t wait to hear about yours! 

Oh, and If you’re having a hard time figuring it out, I just might have a worksheet for that.