Exercise: Character strengths

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Exercise: Character strengths

What kinds of activities feel natural, valuable and meaningful for you to do? Get to know yourself and your strengths with the help of this exercise!

Focusing on your strengths gives you experiences of success and increases your resources. It has been found that people who use their strengths are on average more satisfied with their lives, happier and more confident, less stressed, more resilient in the face of adversity and more successful in their daily lives.

Consciously using your strengths improves self-esteem and evokes positive emotions. For example, you might notice that you can do something, that you are good at it and that you find it important. Noticing this can trigger feelings of self-worth. At the same time, you may realise that you are doing something that comes naturally to you, that is valuable and perhaps meaningful.

Character strengths are individual positive traits that we all possess. They are expressed in and tied to everyday environments, situations and social relationships, and they can be strengthened through practice. Studies show that examining, strengthening and consciously using your character strengths increases wellbeing and positive self-esteem and supports the achievement of goals.

What types of character strengths are there?

Character strengths can be classified according to the VIA classification, developed by positive psychology researchers Martin Seligman and Christopher Peterson and their team. Based on extensive research data, they came up with 24 universal character strengths based on six different virtues. The six virtues and the character strengths assigned to them are:

Wisdom and knowledge

Creativity, curiosity, judgment, love of learning and perspective.

Courage

Bravery, perseverance, honesty and zest.

Humanity

Love, kindness and social intelligence.

Justice

Teamwork, fairness and leadership.

Temperance

Forgiveness, humility, prudence and self-regulation.

Transcendence

Appreciation of beauty and excellence, gratitude, hope, humour and spirituality.

Seligman and Peterson have found that these virtues and strengths are appreciated all over the world. Using them inspires and brings pleasure to yourself and others, and does not harm anyone.

Everyone has these character strengths, but they are expressed differently in each person. How people apply these strengths in different situations also varies.

Exercise: The VIA Character Strengths Survey

Start by taking the VIA Character Strengths Survey, which is available for free on the website of the VIA Institute on Character. It allows you to measure the degree to which you possess the 24 character strengths listed above. You will need to register on the site to take the survey. The VIA acronym stands for Values in Action.

The test is a positive psychology tool where the idea is not to develop the traits that are at the bottom of the list, but rather to identify an individual’s natural, innate and learned strengths and to use and nurture them. Everyone has about five core strengths (the top ones shown in the test report).

If a particular strength does not feel natural to you or you do not recognise it in yourself, you can think about how that strength is expressed in your life. Could it be that you have not noticed it before? You can also ask your friends and family what they think about the strength. If, after giving it some thought, the strength still does not feel natural to you, go back and think about how you answered the survey questions and consider retaking the survey.

Take the survey here

Exercise: Reflecting on your character strengths

Write down the top five strengths that appear in your test results.

After that, reflect on your results by answering the following questions:

What emotions do I feel when I use these character strengths?
Where and in what types of situations do I use these strengths?
In what types of situations could I use these strengths more often?
What issues do I recognise in terms of the risk of overusing one of my character strengths?

Keywords:

mental health, student, wellbeing