Leaning Into What I’m Good At (While the Laundry Piles Up)

I’ll be honest – my home doesn’t always look like a Pinterest board. If you’ve ever visited my home, here’s an insider secret… it’s clean because you visited me! (Hahaha!)

In fact, when I started typing this at the end of February, my Christmas decor was still on top of my kitchen island and my laundry sat in the dryer for three days (and the dryer ran each day because I like to pull out warm clothes to keep them from wrinkling, but they sat in there until my husband needed the dryer). My things-to-do for Celebrate Your Sparkle is currently winning. 

There are moments when all the life transitions feel like a lot of starting over, again, and again, and again.

I was thinking about what I wanted to write about next. I looked at my long list of topics I said I would eventually write about, but nothing was clicking. I drove for over two hours up to New Jersey, and that’s when it hit me... I should talk about strengths!

I specifically want to share about my strengths and how I leverage on these despite all my life transitions. This idea excited me, especially since I'm currently on a "strengths high." I just completed a series of four virtual workshops for a client, and engagement like these are always great reminders of how much I love what I do – and that I’m awesome at it!

Why Strengths?

Strengths is a huge part of what I do. It’s how I started my journey to being a Positive Psychology Coach. In this field, there are two very popular assessments:

• Character Strengths: Which you can learn more about from the VIA Institute on Character.

• CliftonStrengths: Owned by Gallup (more commonly known as StrengthsFinder and was rebranded to honor its creator, Dr. Donald O. Clifton).

While I work with both, I want to focus on CliftonStrengths today. 

I first learned about strengths from my mom. She lent me her copy of Living Your Strengths for my positive psychology class during my masters. A few years later, my sister’s friend invited me to a meetup he organized with his friends. The meetup aimed to help people learn more about their CliftonStrengths results. At that time, I was completing my Master’s thesis and studying for the psychologist board exams.

I was so excited when I left that meetup and even told a friend, "That’s what I want to do!" Everything about it made so much sense. It gave me so much clarity on why I was good at therapy and why I didn’t always like therapy. My Top 5 CliftonStrengths Themes gave me the language to explain what I couldn’t make sense of in terms of how I felt about what I was doing then.

Focus on What’s Right

The field of Positive Psychology encourages us to pay attention to what is right in order to flourish and thrive. We intentionally shift our focus away from what we lack, the negative things that happen, and all the things that can possibly go wrong. We benefit significantly by shining a spotlight on what people are good at, the blessing we receive, the things we have, and what goes well.

Lately, I catch myself needing more sparkle check-ins - moments when I feel tired, depleted, and just not myself. This often happens when I do so many things for others (like my husband and daughter) and I forget to do something for myself. It also happens when I do too many things at the same time and I’m spread too thinly. 

These sparkle check-ins help me to find my rhythm again, regain my energy, and boost my motivation. Leaning into my Top 5 CliftonStrengths Themes always helps fuel my sparkle check-ins.

The ROI of My Top 5: The First 2 Months of 2026

I love helping others discover their strengths and learn how to be more of themselves. I wanted to specifically share how I’ve been using my own Top 5 CliftonStrengths Themes to navigate the unseen “messy middle" of building my business again and raising a two-year-old.

MAXIMIZER: At the start of each year, I read my CliftonStrengths report again. I let myself take it in as if I’ve never read it before. What struck me the most from my report was this – “Driven by your talents, you forge ahead to build the life you envision. You reach your goals by finding as many opportunities as possible to use your unique abilities and natural gifts.”. I felt I wasn’t doing this for myself.

I used this talent for whatever came my way, being a wife, a mom, moving countries and houses, and everyday life. At the same time, it felt incomplete because I want so much more for myself. These two lines hit hard that it fired me up to start doing more for myself! 

I leaned into my Maximizer to learn American Sign Language (ASL) again. Something I’ve been doing on-and-off for over 10 years, and I’m still mediocre at. Of course my Maximizer won’t let me be just mediocre at it. I constantly find ways to level up things because of my Maximizer. 

When I got into the groove of ASL everyday, I started thinking of my consulting and coaching business and how to build it again. That lead me to posting on my blog and social media.

As a mom, my Maximizer helps me to be fully present with my daughter. Once she naps, I make the most of my time to get work-related tasks done and sometimes do some house chores.

POSITIVITY: I often say my Positivity is not blind optimism. I acknowledge that my situation isn’t ideal. I see, feel, and cry about hard days too. What I do after that is where my Positivity kicks in. I get up, find the lessons in the experiences, and apply them!

This theme is what helps me to keep hoping even when there are many uncertainties. It helped me make the mindset shifts I needed to start writing again. It allowed me to see that “starting over” isn’t a setback, it’s an opportunity to start fresh.

My Positivity also amplified my motivation when I had a company contact me for strengths workshops. At the same time two individuals reached out for coaching. All in one week! That energy definitely accelerated a lot of the work I started in January!

I also lean into my Positivity to have A LOT of fun - with my daughter throughout the day, to laugh at my husband’s seemingly unconnected stories, and to have energy at midnight to lead workshops. My Positivity helps me to see that I cleared 1/10th of my kitchen island and transferred my laundry into the dryer, and that I at least did something for chores.

COMMUNICATION: As you know by now, I’m a talker and a storyteller. Sure, this post can be so much shorter but it wouldn’t be the same story that way.

Since my motivation was multiplied by my Positivity and my Maximizer wanted to do more, I found myself in an interview back-to-back with a coaching demo with a specific organization. My Communication really shined through. I didn’t know how to prepare for the interview. I simply reminded myself to let my Communication lead. I left both conversations with good feedback.

This theme also felt so seen when I conducted the series of strengths workshops. I needed to innovate with some of my activities since half of the group had taken my workshops before, and half were completely new to strengths. During the last workshop, I had an activity that combined two different things. I really thought out how I was going to give the instructions and have them complete the task. I felt it was somehow more complex than most of our activities. When I finished explaining what they were going to do, I asked “what questions do you have?”. They all said “none!”. I happily exclaimed “Yes! My Communication is doing its job well!”.

My daughter has definitely benefited from my being talkative - I talk to her all day. Apparently, at a minimum, a two-year-old is only expected to know 50 words and be able to identify five body parts (I was shocked by this). My daughter is able to say full sentences, answer in complete thoughts, and identify all her body parts in English and Filipino. It’s amazing how we can now have conversations, she can follow instructions, and she even shares experiences she remembers. 

WOO: I love meeting new people. When I first moved here, it wasn’t very easy to get around and be around people. When I had my daughter, I always felt overloaded with things to pay attention to and do. I just wanted to sit in peace. Woo took a back seat and stayed in the corner.

At the end of 2025, I declared to my bible study group, from Restore Church, that I wanted to intentionally connect with more people. The year started and I promised myself I would greet people I pass by, ask familiar faces something about their day, and reach out to acquaintances to have coffee and get to know them better. I found myself with more energy on days I engaged in small talk with others than on days I felt “too tired” to do anything else.

It’s been two months of having my Woo lead again in social settings. I joined a third bible study group, made three new friends, had two new play dates for my daughter, and multiple coffee and Zoom chats. It’s been so much fun!

My daughter definitely amplifies my Woo since she enjoys saying hi to people.

INCLUDER: This theme always makes me think “the more, the merrier”. I don’t like it when people are left out or feel lost in conversations. I also honestly don’t like feeling left out (but that’s a topic for another day).

A friend of mine asked me to be the game master during her son’s birthday. When I asked for players for the first game, I had kids from age 4 until late teens. My Includer helped me to quickly pivot and divide the game into two - little kids and big kids. Everyone got to play!

As a facilitator, I always leverage on my Includer during my workshops. I keep track of each person’s participation and make sure to hear from everyone at least once. 

I had to stop and think how I use my Includer as a mom. Lately, I noticed my daughter tends to play with her food or do other things when the adults talk to each other during meal times. I realized it was my Includer at play with how I chose to deal with these instances. My Includer noticed the pattern and helped me to continue telling my story to my husband while directing it to my daughter so she feels we are still with her.

So... Yes, my laundry stays in my dryer for three days, AND I feel like I’m on top of my game again. Intentionally using My Top 5 Themes for myself and my career, in the past two months, has definitely helped me to feel more like myself than I have in the past three years. 

Here’s a great reminder I feel when can all benefit from every once in a while…

"You can’t really be anyone you want to be,

but you can be a whole lot more of who you already are."

Tom Rath

PS: If you're curious about strengths, reach out and let me know. As you can see, I LOVE talking about strengths and would be happy to help you discover yours!

PPS: Did you notice I can finally format my blog? Now to edit the rest and make them look prettier! I benefited from leveraging on others strengths, because this whole website thing is really not mine.