When I took the “VIA Survey of Character Strengths”, I got Judgement, critical thinking, and open-mindedness as my top strength, followed by social intelligence, and gratitude. According to the survey, my top strength is described as being able to “think things through and examine them from all sides and not jumping to conclusions.” Although I have this as my top strength, I can implement it to my college life better. So far I have used my judgement when making decisions in academic areas like choosing classes or joining organizations. But I have not been as successful in adopting this trait in my personal life. I would like to develop the habit of not jumping to conclusions when it comes to my relationships. I want to leave things to time and to their natural flow rather than worrying about the current state of my relationships. Especially in a society as individualistic as the American society, I must learn to think of myself and my current desires first rather than worrying about future outcomes and jumping to long-term conclusions.
Moreover, I think that by keeping a Gratitude Journal I have developed the habit of being grateful and more importantly realizing the things that I should be grateful for. In college, it is easy to go either way when it comes to gratefulness. You can easily despise the campus you are in or you can love it. It all depends on the perspective and I am happy with where I am right now.
On the other hand, my social intelligence is another trait of mine that I have been utilizing to develop healthy habits in my social life. I would like to develop the habit of reaching out to more people. Last week, I reached out to people I hung out with in the beginning of the Fall semester. All of them were happy that I approached them and I have plans with all of them for next week. If I make it a habit to reach out to people instead of waiting for them to reach out to me, I can be more satisfied with my social life because I would have the control over how much I want to go out and socialize.
My 4th strength is self-regulation and self-discipline. This is a sensitive strength I have because at times it can be damaging to my mental health if I am too strict on my self. Especially during midterms, I tend to regulate my diet, exercise, sleep, and study schedule way too strictly and I get mentally exhausted from thinking about balancing all of the former factors in my life. Therefore, I want to develop the habit of finding a routine for myself that I mostly stick to. By developing this routine, I won’t have to constantly think about what I am doing next. However, there is a thin line between sticking to a routine and being stuck in a routine. I also want to be more flexible with finding moments to breath and break the routine a little bit.
