Middle Years

Character Strengths

As part of the Year 8 YOLO (You Only Live Once) program, the Year 8s have been finding their strengths using the VIA Strengths Survey for Youth. Students will then, over the next few weeks, focus on using their strengths in both their academic and co-curricular activities.

Strengths are important

Research has shown that identifying and using our strengths in novel ways in our everyday lives, increases self-awareness, optimism, satisfaction with life and engagement (Peterson and Seligman, 2004). If we focus on our strengths, in a way, we 'trick' ourselves into using our strengths to improve our weaknesses without losing the fun.

Finding my Strengths

This is quite an easy process. All you need is a computer, an internet connection and your own honest self. Go to the website https://www.viacharacter.org/ and complete the VIA Character Strengths Survey. You will need to register to access the survey (registration is free). The VIA Character Strengths Survey takes about 20 minutes to complete and will give you a ranking across 24 character strengths. Your top five strengths are considered your signature strengths.  It’s quite entertaining to get people close to you to complete the survey and see what each person’s signature strengths are. A good conversation for the dinner table!

By the way, your signature strengths don’t have to be just your top five strengths, and you can include a few more if you like (I like to include my top six strengths). 

For those who are disappointed with your lowest-ranked strengths. Remember, it doesn’t mean you don’t have any of these strengths. It just means they don’t rank as highly for you as some of the other strengths. The good news is that our strengths are malleable, and we can change them over time. 

The challenge is to find novel ways to use your signature strengths. Choose a strength that:

• You feel a sense of ownership.
• You get a feeling of excitement when using it.
• You experience a rapid learning curve when you first practice the strength.
• You yearn to find new ways to use your strength.
• You get a feeling of invigoration, not exhaustion, when using it. 

Try it… I promise that it’s quite fun. Research tells us it will improve our self-awareness, optimism, satisfaction with life and engagement, and that cannot be bad.

I look forward to seeing and hearing how the Year 8s have been using their strengths in new and novel ways.

REMINDER: Explore 2024 subject selections are due Wednesday, 6 September, 2023.