Your Strengths\’ calendar for July (7/12)

Hello and welcome (back) to my blog!

And Happy July, my friends! Can you believe we are in July already??? Half of the year is gone, in other words, and I really hope your 2024 continues smoothly enough for you. At this end it\’s been a bumpy ride since March at least.

In case you are new on my blog and are not really familiar with the character strengths, they are the backbone of Positive Psychology – the science that studies human flourishing, or what leads humans to peak performance. These character strengths have been researched intensely in the last 20+ years and the studies say that they are:

1. Universal – we all have them, no matter where we live
2. Cross-cultural – they exist in all cultures of the world
3. Easily recognized – we apply them without thinking
4. Elevating to self and others – they put us in a state of flow and lead to peak performance

The Strengths Calendar for July shares simple ways to help us approach life with Honesty, Perseverance and Zest. Almost all activities have a link attached to them, that you can access if you click on the image – each of them will lead you to an article or a video about that specific strength:

But for now, let\’s just see what each of them means:

Honesty – is a strength within the virtue of Courage, one of the six virtues that include the 24 strengths. Actually, all the 3 strengths approached in July fall under the virtue of Courage.

According to VIA, honesty is when you are honest and speak the truth. More broadly, you present yourself in a genuine and sincere way, without pretense, and you take responsibility for your feelings and actions. You are a person of integrity — you are who you say you are — and you act consistently across the domains of your life, rather than being one way in the community and a completely different way in your family. As a result, you believe you are being consistently true to yourself.

We all know that honest people are typically viewed as trustworthy, and this contributes to good relationships. In Positive Psychology, honesty is also linked to improved accuracy of your goals, reflecting your true values and interests.

Perseverance – is sticking with things. It means being hardworking and finishing what is started, despite barriers and obstacles that arise. The pleasure received from completing tasks and projects is very important to those who are high in perseverance. Sometimes we must dig deep and muster the will to overcome thoughts of giving up. There are two vectors of perseverance. It requires both effort for a task and duration to keep the task up (quote from VIA).

From the Positive Psychology point of view, Perseverance helps to improve our skills, talents, and resourcefulness, as well as build other character strengths. Persistent people are often seen as people who follow through on commitments. This contributes to building trust that can be a foundation for good relationships.

Zest means approaching a situation, or life in general, with excitement and energy, not approaching tasks or activities 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 (quote from VIA).

From the Positive Psychology point of view, Zest is one of the two strengths most strongly connected with happiness. If you are high in zest you are likely to be one of the lucky people who view their work as a calling in life, in that the work is deeply fulfilling, meaningful, and purposeful.

If you did not take your VIA Character Strength Test yet, by now you are probably excited to find out your OWN Strengths, and how you can apply them to Build The Life You Really Want. Then you will most likely want to know what makes you unique (your top 5-6 strengths are unique to you) and how to use your strengths to thrive and flourish.

Well, im looking forward to meeting you, so we can discover together how you can live your life from a position of strength, with more fulfilment.

Stay close for the next blogpost. Remember, 2024 will be (y)our BEST year yet ;)!

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