Teaching is an incredibly demanding yet rewarding profession. But with heavy workloads, stress, and emotional burnout, many teachers struggle to maintain their motivation and wellbeing over the long run. What if there was a research-backed way to boost teacher resilience, engagement, and relationships at work? In this post, I’ll discuss how identifying and applying your unique character strengths can lead to better thriving as an educator.
Discover your character strengths
In order to perform at your best and flourish, it’s crucial to feel a sense of purpose, engagement and be value driven. One way of doing this is by activating the VIA Character Strengths, which are “psychological ingredients that drive our behaviour and motivation; they affect how we think and feel and when activated, allow us to feel authentic and engaged” (VIA Character, 2022).
It’s important to note that these strengths are not skills but Values In Action (VIA). The following suggestion is an evidence-based approach which has been proven to promote teacher’s resilience, motivation, collegial relationships and overall wellbeing.
First, find out your signature strengths by completing the brief, but free survey. It’s important to note that ‘lesser strengths’ are not weaknesses, but an indication of strengths not being used. (sometimes we are not in a situation where we can use a certain strength at work, in the classroom, or with friends). Similarly, they are not fixed talents, which means we can develop
them.
Build Resilience
Being ‘resilient’ means being able to positively grow from adversity and we each have different coping mechanisms. When feeling anxious our body reacts in the same way as it would a physical threat (e.g faster heart rate). The 24 strengths can provide us with different perspectives, making us better able to respond. When we’re teaching and notice a mistake, we could ask ourselves ‘what would (kindness) do?’. Simply use the same question but change ‘kindness’ to one of your top character strengths, then solutions will come naturally and effortlessly.
Purposeful Motivation
Knowing what we value can clarify why we enjoy or don’t enjoy performing certain tasks
related to our job. A teacher performs various roles on a daily basis (e.g materials developer, mediator, moderator, customer service) and our level of engagement is connected to our values. Spend time reflecting on your own strengths and how they match or don’t match different parts of your current role. So many people complain about being bored or miserable in their jobs and perhaps it’s because they don’t get to practice what they value on a daily basis. Imagine the magnitude of that feeling when being unaware of your own values?!
Social Intelligence
A sense of achievement is also vital for one’s wellbeing and working with others means accomplishing greater feats. Being aware of our own strengths makes it easier to identify them in others. Knowing what makes others tick means we can play to people’s strengths and make them feel more engaged in the process. Allowing people to act in their own authentic way provides them with a sense of autonomy and belonging too. We can use this knowledge to help us orchestrate teamwork both inside and outside of the classroom.
Word of caution
Like anything, too much of a good thing can end up being bad. Just like it’s possible to underuse our strengths, we can overuse them too. If people are too brave, it can be considered reckless. All too often we are encouraged to attend to our weaknesses, at the cost of developing our strengths. More and more research suggests that cultivating our natural strengths cultivates
long lasting positive growth and development. Essentially, when we better understand our natural instincts, it provides a whole new perspective to our situations and why we feel the way we do.
Focusing on our innate character strengths is a powerful way for teachers to tap into what energizes them and brings purpose to their work. By taking the free VIA survey and making strengths-based changes in your teaching practice, you can set yourself up for greater resilience, motivation, connection with colleagues and students – ultimately helping you thrive in this difficult but meaningful career. Why not give it a try?