2024 Calendar of Strengths (1/12)

Hello and Happy New Year, my friends!

I hope you entered 2024 with a good sense of meaning, purpose and enthusiasm! And if you have not, then here I am with a motivational activity calendar, based on your own character strengths. These calendars are provided monthly by VIA Institute on Character, an NGO that empowers us to thrive via our own strengths. Their definition on character strengths is the following:

\”Character strengths are the positive parts of your personality that make you feel authentic and engaged….Research shows that understanding and applying your strengths can help:

• Boost Confidence
• Increase Happiness
• Strengthen Relationships
• Manage Problems
• Reduce Stress
• Accomplish Goals
• Build Meaning and Purpose
• Improve Work Performance\”

Another good definition is: \”Character strengths are positive personality traits that reflect personal identity (i.e., who we are), produce positive outcomes (e.g. boosting well-being such as positive emotions and meaning in life, while managing adversity such as conflicts, anxiety, and stress), and contribute to the greater collective good (Niemiec 2018).\”

In other words, it is recommendable to use our strengths every day, so that we can improve our wellbeing.

As I was writing in this blogpost, each and every one of us has a total of 24 such character strengths, in different degrees. They are the link between your daily actions and building yourself a life that is rich in significance and purpose. In other words, we can use them in order to thrive.

The Strengths Calendar for January provides daily activities to help you cultivate meaning each day, using your inner strengths of Spirituality, Zest and Curiosity.

Every day suggests an activity we can all implement – using a few of our strengths in an intentional way – to help build some other positive trait in ourselves. And all activities have a link attached to them, that you can access if you click on the image:

Now let\’s see what each of them means:

All the 24 character strengths are part of 6 virtue categories.

And ZEST is under the virtue of Courage. According to VIACharacter.org, Zest means approaching life with excitement and energy, not halfway or halfheartedly. People who are high in zest are excited to get up in the morning, and they live their lives like an adventure. Zest is a dynamic strength that is directly related to physical and psychological wellness. This strength has the strongest ties to overall life satisfaction and a life of engagement.

Under-using Zest means to be sloth-like, passive, sedentary and tired.

Over-using Zest means to be hyper, overactive and annoying.

The Golden Mean for Zest would mean to have enthusiasm for life, to feel happy, active and energized.

CURIOSITY is under the virtue of Wisdom. According to VIACharacter.org, curiosity means to seek out situations where one gains new experiences without getting in anyone\’s way, including one\’s own way. It means to explore and discover, to take an interest in ongoing experience for its own sake. Curiosity is often described as novelty-seeking and being open to experience, and it’s associated with the natural desire to build knowledge. To go to a new restaurant, visit a new city, meet a new person in your class can each fulfill your quest for new experiences and new information.

Curious individuals are, on one hand, interested in exploring new ideas, activities and experiences, and, on the other hand, they also have a strong desire to increase their own personal knowledge.

Under-using Curiosity means to be bored, uninterested, apathetic and self-involved.

Over-using Curiosity means to be nosy, intrusive and self-serving.

The Golden Mean for Curiosity would be to act as an “explorer,” to be intrigued, open, a novelty-seeker.

SPIRITUALITY falls under the virtue of Transcendence. According to VIACharacter.org, spirituality has been defined consistently by scientists as the search for or connection with “the sacred”. Spirituality is universal. As a character strength, spirituality involves the belief that there is a dimension to life that is beyond human understanding. Spirituality is believed to describe both the private, intimate relationship between humans and the divine, and the range of virtues that result from the relationships.

Under-using Spirituality means to have a lack of purpose or meaning in life, to be disconnected
from what is sacred and unaware of core values.

Over-using Spirituality means to be preachy, fanatical, holier than thou; it means to have rigid values..

The Golden Mean for Spirituality would be to be connected with the sacred, to be pursuing life meaning and finding purpose.

By now you are probably curious and excited to find out your OWN character strengths, and how they can make YOU feel energised, more confident and accomplished, among others. \’Cause who would not want that, eh ;)? For this you will need to take a test to find out what your strengths are, and this is how you will also find out what each of them means.

Then you will most likely want to know what makes you unique (your top 5 strengths are unique to you) and how to use your strengths to thrive. For example, one of my top 5 strengths is appreciation of beauty and excellence. And maybe this is why I\’ve always enjoyed the beauty of a blooming tree, the golden light of a beautiful sunset, the smell of dying leaves in the autumn\’s puddles, and why I was so very attracted to scrapbooking, my hobby. If you get goosebumps when you listen to your favourite music, no matter how old that song is, you might be a fellow of mine in this respect. For that reason, because I want to keep this strength very much alive in me and hoping to inspire you too, I was thinking to assign a scrapbooking paper or creation to each month, what do you think? We begin with the beauty of winter in January, a playful collection for winter lovers. The beauty of this collection inspired me to use it in a quadruple folio – \”The four seasons\”:

Once you have your result, you might feel a bit confused, not knowing exactly what to do with all that information. You might feel that you need a bit of guidance. Well, there is where I will do my best to \”translate\” everything that you don\’t understand about your strengths, and to show you how you can use these super-qualities to live a life filled with more sense and purpose.

But just to get you started, let\’s take today\’s suggestion: Uncover the strengths linked to increased meaning in life. Every link will take you to a different location filled with detailed explanations and ideas on how to do that specific activity. Today we find out that there are 3 types of meaning – significance, purpose and coherence (with definitions to all of them, of course) – and that all 3 work together to help us experience life as meaningful and important. And then it gives us concrete ideas on how to gain more meaning in our lives by using these 3 strengths that we all have.

Hoping I brought a bit of excitement in a usually \”blue\” January, im looking forward to meeting you, so we can discover together how you can get rid of your limiting beliefs, how you can form positive habits and stick to your goals. All for a life filled with sense, purpose and enthusiasm.

Remember, 2024 will be (y)our BEST year yet ;)!

Until next time, stay positive and take care of yourselves!