Most Frequent Strengths and Opportunities

Spirit Map is unique in the way its algorithm integrates people’s self-assessment and importance ratings to determine Signature Strengths (SS) and Key Opportunities (KO):

• Signature Strengths: highest combination of self-assessment and importance ratings
• Key Opportunities: combination of lower self-assessment and higher importance ratings

What items show up most often as Signature Strengths and Key Opportunities for the individuals who have completed Spirit Map? We analyzed 523 responses from people who completed Spirit Map for their congregation* to see. 

Signature Strength (high self-assessment, high importance)	% of People
I seek opportunities to learn and grow.	34.3
I experience awe.	33.5
I act with integrity.	33.0
I believe it matters what I do.	32.6
I am curious to learn more about how the world around me works.	31.9
I care deeply about the welfare of others.	30.9
I take responsibility for the consequences of my actions, even those that are unintended.	29.1
Leading a moral life makes me happy.	26.7
I act in an authentic manner.	26.2
I believe my life has meaning and purpose.	25.0

 

Key Opportunity (lower self-assessment, higher importance)	% of People
I make good decisions about when to act.	36.8
I have a clear purpose to my life and am able to articulate that purpose to both myself and others.	33.9
I give to others fully and generously.	30.8
I can be in the presence of my own or another’s pain without needing to flee or fix it.	29.7
I have the ability to repent, forgive myself, and change.	29.1
I’m able to adapt when things do not turn out the way I want.	28.0
I can ask for and accept forgiveness.	26.7
I actively practice my spiritual or religious faith.	23.0
I act in a spiritual manner.	22.7
I can tell the difference between what I am responsible for, and what I do not control.	22.1

 

We encourage congregations and individuals to consider how their Signature Strengths and Key Opportunities interact with each other, and two pairs from these lists combine in interesting ways:

SS: I believe my life has meaning and purpose.
KO: I have a clear purpose to my life and am able to articulate that purpose to both myself and others.
 
SS: I care deeply about the welfare of others.
KO: I give to others fully and generously.
 
We regularly see these pairs emerge for the individuals and congregations who complete Spirit Map, and we encourage them to consider how the Signature Strength might support work on the Key Opportunity. For example, in the first pair, the belief that life has meaning and purpose can provide both motivation and a frame for the search for vocation. Daily reflection on what meaning has been found in that day (and where it was not found) can suggest possibilities for a meaningful vocation that connects to a higher purpose. Daily reflection on the meaning found in that day can also strengthen the ability to shift vocation as circumstances change, so that it does not become a static vocation that over time loses its ability to be a vehicle of service to the world’s need or an all-consuming idol out of balance and right relationship.
 
In the second pair, the opportunity is to translate deep caring into personal generosity. Daily reflection on where the care for others might find concrete and generous expression, within good boundaries so that neither the giver nor the recipient becomes burdened, can help both individuals and congregations find the redemptive power of love acting in the world.
 
It’s also interesting to consider what domains of spiritual well-being are reflected in these most-frequent Signature Strengths and Key Opportunities. We’ve done factor analysis on the Spirit Map items to determine which items “bundle” together and found five domains (for more info on this process, see our white paper):

• Spiritual (coral items above)
• Personal (blue items above)
• Communal (green items above)
• Environmental (uncolored item above)
• Curiosity (gray items above)

​Notice how most of the most-frequent Signature Strengths come from the Communal and Curiosity domains and how most of the most-frequent Key Opportunities come from the Personal and Spiritual domains. What could this mean, particularly for congregations, since these responses all came from individuals who are already part of a congregational community? Some questions worth considering:

• Do many of the most-frequent Signature Strengths come from the Communal domain because people who join a congregation have already developed those strengths? What does this mean for the congregation’s ministry to people who are not already strong in this area of their spiritual life, but still have a deep need for community?
• How might it change the church’s ministries to know that people often identify the personal and spiritual domains of their spiritual well-being as particularly needing attention?

What are the most-frequent Signature Strengths and Key Opportunities in your congregation? Contact us to start the Spirit Map process in your congregation and find out. What are your personal Signature Strengths and Key Opportunities? Take the Spirit Map inventory yourself and see! You can purchase a Spirit Map report, which gives you full access to the inventory, or you can try a sample inventory. Or, explore our website to learn more about us.
 
*We used the data from three Unitarian Universalist congregations, one in Minnesota (n=248), one in Colorado (n=302), and one in Massachusetts (n=133). We only used the data from people in these congregations who gave a self-assessment and an importance rating to all 44 Spirit Map items, hence the n for this analysis (523) is less than the total sample from the three congregations.