When we have the opportunity to use our strengths (the things we are good at and enjoy doing), we are more likely to feel confident, creative, satisfied and engaged (McQuaid & Lawn 2014). Strengths are ways of thinking, feeling and behaving that come naturally and easily to us and enable high functioning and performance (Linley & Harrington 2004). When we work in our strengths – in our activities, relationships and learning – they energise us. We all have positive character traits to be discovered, valued, used and further developed.
Working with a strengths based approach is not just about finding what our character strengths are. We as educators and leaders can draw out strengths in our students which can lead to higher engagement and motivation in the classroom. When we focus on what’s right with a student rather than what’s wrong with them we will make leaps forward in creating thriving students. When students are encouraged to bring their strengths and skills to positively contribute to their classroom, learning becomes an enriching experience.
Doing a strengths survey is a great place to start recognising that we all have different strengths and we can learn how to use them. It is important though, that we don’t consider our strengths to be inherent and unchanging parts of our character. We should instead avoid rigid conceptions of ourselves and consider our strengths as capable of being improved (Dweck 2006). We are in fact able to build on our strengths and our weaknesses. Strengths are indeed flexible and able to be adapted.
Character strength surveys
You can take the online survey and find out more about these specific character strengths at http://www.viacharacter.org/www/#nav.
A youth survey, as well as an adult survey, have been developed in order to help people aged 13 and over engage in a process of self-examination of their own strengths. Once you complete the survey, you are provided with your character strengths profile, listing (ranking) your strengths from 1 to 24 according to your responses. This represents a suitable starting point for applying and evolving these strengths further.
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