The Power in Appreciating Beauty and Excellence

Appreciating beauty and excellence relates to the human tendency to feel powerful transcendent emotions when noticing beauty in the world.

When I started my positive psychology program I learned about my strengths and the other strengths that I could work on. There was one strength that intrigued me well and made me realize that it is an aspect that I can truly work on.

“The more often we see the things around us – even the beautiful and wonderful things – the more they become invisible to us. That is why we often take for granted the beauty of this world: the flowers, the trees, the birds, the clouds – even those we love.”

Joseph Wirthlin

That strength was the appreciation of beauty and excellence. As I read more about it and realized the lack of resources about it, I realized that this strength s the most undermined and undervalued of the 24 strengths! This article will relate to you the things that I learned about this specific strength that I hope will also help you too!

We all have a bad habit of taking things for granted.

What is appreciation of beauty & excellence

I learned through my positive psychology course that those who express an appreciation of beauty & excellence notice and appreciate beauty, excellence, and/or skilled performance in all domains of life, from nature to art to mathematics to science to everyday experience. People high in Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence are responsive to these three types of goodness:

• PHYSICAL BEAUTY. This may include auditory, tactile, or abstract. This type of goodness produces awe and wonder in the person experiencing it.
• SKILL OR TALENT (EXCELLENCE). This is often energizing and compels a person to pursue their own goals. It inspires admiration
• VIRTUE OR MORAL GOODNESS (MORAL BEAUTY). Virtuous goodness makes someone want to be better, more loving, and creates feelings of elevation.

Appreciate of beauty and excellence: The most undervalued strength

Most people love anything that pleases their eyes. Sometimes they may use their eyes too much they get blinded by what’s merely physical. But I believe that beauty isn’t all physical, it’s not just all about the surface everyone sees, that it is a complex of people’s level of appreciation, how they try to look at something and put a value on what’s beyond visual. And I recently learned that this is a strength that is undermined. Beauty is a matter of perspective, and who knew that one’s appreciation of it is a strength? I for one never knew of it until I was halfway through my program! I found out that it is a strength that I could try to work on. A study in 2008 by Money, Hillenbrand, and Camara showed that appreciation of beauty and excellence has often been found to be in the bottom 5 strengths expressed at work. Being the least expressed and used, their study also suggested that it was the only strength with a low match with the demands of work. However, this is not to say that this strength doesn’t have a significant and positive part to play in the workplace culture. As with all strengths, to bring out the best in them, it requires an awareness of the strength and means and place to apply it in the appropriate context and appropriate measure.

Benefits of Practicing Appreciation

Most of the research-based benefits of this strength can easily be leveraged at work including:

• Awe and inspiration we feel when enjoying the expert skills and virtues of others
• Focusing our attention on what’s going right and what is being done well in the organization
• Celebrating and appreciating employees’ success to motivate greatness

Because this strength has a strong set of emotions connected to it (unlike more cognitive strengths like curiosity), it allows us to transcend ego and instead be moved to a state of awareness in which we may feel drawn to future opportunities. We are more likely to feel more expansive and positive. Moreover, as studies indicate, these positive emotions broaden the possible scope of action. Through positive psychology training the strength of appreciation of the beauty of excellence is important in the workplace as it enables employees to flourish in ways such as:

• Making the focus of employees’ attention on what is going right and not just what is going wrong in the organization
• Appreciating the expertise and talents of employees can act as a motivator and re-energize them
• Celebrating individual, team and organizational successes can improve the psychological wellbeing of employees

The strengths of appreciation of beauty and excellence can manifest itself in the workplace in several critical ways. One of the key ways in which appreciation of beauty and excellence has a positive impact in the workplace is to encourage and motivate oneself and also colleagues. For example, a leader who is high in the strength of appreciation of beauty and excellence will be more aware of when a team is displaying excellent performance. By acknowledging this excellent performance and feeding this back to the team by praising their efforts, can lead to the team being more motivated to maintain their exceptional work. Appreciation of beauty is important in business areas such as research & development and marketing as teams strive to come up with something that potential customers will be attracted to and appreciate so that they make more sales.

How to Practice this Strength

As discussed in our positive psychology program, one way to practice this strength is to get regular exposure to green space in your environment, especially if you’re a city dweller and/or office worker. Remember to exercise your appreciation of beauty and excellence strength by really noticing your environment. Look closely at the details and what makes them special. Here are 3 simple and effective ways of developing this strength:

• Create a workplace culture where excellent performance is to be acknowledged and celebrated
• Consciously look for instances of beauty and excellence, so that it becomes a conscious habit
• If you’re not firing on all cylinders, take some time to go to a place that you’re fond of, e.g. a local park, and appreciate all of the beauty around you

If employees can play to their strength of appreciating beauty and excellence more often at work, there can be profound positive effects for employees and the organization. Look out for when you or a colleague is using the strength of appreciation of beauty and excellence and encourage them to use it more often. We can learn more about this strength by taking up a positive psychology program.

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