When leaving policing it is important to consider what you want to do next. Do you want to look for other employment, volunteer roles, or even going back into education and complete that degree or masters you always wanted to do? Your finances and family commitments will obviously play a deciding part in your next chapter but it is also important to understand what is important to you, what you value and what your strengths are.
What are your Strengths?
Your strengths can be thought of as your positive characteristics or traits. They can influence how you behave, your motivations and how you act and feel. According to Positive Psychology strengths can broadly fall into larger categories or virtues. These are:
Wisdom: This describes thoughts and cognitive strengths in how to seek, gain, and apply knowledge.
Humanity: This describes interaction with others inter-personally. This strength relates to looking after, caring for and showing compassion for others.
Courage: This describes the emotional strength of demonstrating willpower and tenacity in the face of adversity to achieve desired goals.
Justice: This describes a strong sense of civic duty and role in the community and wider society.
Temperance: This describes strong emotional regulation, humility and self-restraint.
Transcendence: This describes a strong sense of coherence, purpose, seeing the bigger picture, spirituality and an appreciation of beauty.
When going through a transition such as leaving policing or retirement thinking about your strengths and what you do well can help us decide what it is you want to do in the future. Here are some questions to help you think about your strengths and how you can use them in future endeavours.
Questions
What do you enjoy doing well? How does that make you feel? How can you do more if it in the future?
Looking back over your career, what activities have made you feel like you are being ‘true to yourself’?
What are your proudest moments and what strengths did you demonstrate?
What aspects of your current job, or your life in general, do you feel you do well?
Looking back on the past five years, what are some of the strengths you have demonstrated or developed that you are particularly proud of?
What are some of your key achievements? How did your strengths contribute?
What strengths helped you through challenging times?
How do you enjoy spending your leave? How would you spend your time if you could do anything you wanted to do?
Once you have thought of your strengths, it can be useful to get feedback from those close to you. You can share this list with friends, colleagues and family members and get feedback. There may be strengths they see in you that you might not have considered or key achievements you have forgotten. Your identified strengths can be used for your CV and job applications, at interview and to help you decide what types of roles and activities you want to do once you leave the police service.
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