DO you find life exhausting and frustrating? Or is it easy and exhilarating? The difference between the two experiences may hinge on something simple: whether or not your life is aligned to your signature strengths.

Signature strengths are the things we like doing and are good at. For example, I love learning; it excites me! We find more happiness and satisfaction in our life if it is aligned with our signature strengths.

Imagine for a moment that your top signature strength was curiosity. You would be interested in how things work and would happily spend hours tinkering in a shed, taking things apart and putting them together again. What kind of job would make you happy? Maybe being an inventor, or a repair-person. You would happily pour over the bit that doesn’t function, forget about lunch, and wonder, "Why doesn’t the bl..dy thing work?"

But put you in a highly constrained job as a store manager or as a factory worker at a conveyor belt and you would be unhappy and unfulfilled.

In the following, you’ll find Martin Seligman’s 24 signature strengths. When you consider the various signature strengths, take note of the ones where you immediately think, ‘Yep, that’s me!’.

I’ll tell you at the end of this post which are my signature strengths (as well as my signature weaknesses…) Which description in the following list fits the real You?

More from Mary's desk: 35 things that make you special | 15 minutes to a younger-looking you! | 17 ways to overcome grumpiness | The marvellous power of THANKS! 

This feature has been sourced with permission from Mary Jaksch's Goodlife Zen. Mary, a Zen master, writes passionate articles about personal growth with a spiritual twist on her blog.

Photographs: stock.Xchng