The Character Strength Profile allowed me to get a deeper insight into my strengths and weaknesses as a student and a future professional. By realizing what my signature, middle, and lesser strengths are, I will be able to focus on the enhancement of existing assets and developing those that I currently lack. According to the profile results, my major strengths are honesty, kindness, spirituality, love of learning, and gratitude. My middle strengths include perspective, fairness, perseverance, hope, forgiveness, self-regulation, teamwork, judgment, humility, social intelligence, prudence, love, humor, and curiosity. Finally, my lesser strengths are leadership, appreciation of beauty and excellence, zest, creativity, and bravery. Each of these groups of strengths bears significance both for my present and future development.
When going forward with my education, the most important thing is to make the best out of the strengths I already possess and utilize them to promote my skills and knowledge. I find each of the five signature strengths singled out by the profile highly crucial. Love of learning is probably the most important feature to discuss at this point since it determines my attitude toward gaining knowledge and operating it successfully in the future. I think that love of learning is an important characteristic because, without it, one merely studies the material without being passionate about it. Meanwhile, being truly dedicated to one’s future profession makes one more confident about the selected area of study. Gratitude is another significant feature since it enables people to realize how much good they receive from others, be it a favor or a piece of knowledge shared. Therefore, I am planning to utilize my love of learning and gratitude in my further educational endeavors so as to determine the most crucial information related to my profession and to be thankful to those who pay an effort to give knowledge to me.
Kindness is the other side of gratitude, which means helping others, such as peers. I intend to continue participating in group activities where my skills and initiatives can help others to find solutions to their questions or understand the material better. Finally, spirituality and honesty are necessary elements of being compassionate and kind. As Wolfteich et al. (2019) remark, spirituality helps to form and direct one’s understanding of the meaning of life. Meanwhile, honesty is an integral component of education, especially for nursing students (Timmins et al., 2018). I am going to continue practicing this strength since I am convinced that it has to be a priority in my professional communication with patients.
What concerns my middle strengths, I consider each of them an invaluable asset. Curiosity, perspective, perseverance, judgment, and fairness are crucial not only for one’s personal and professional development but also for successful collaboration with other students. Being unbiased and interested in others’ work and achievements makes me an attentive listener and enable me to arrange friendly relationships with others. The mentioned strengths are rather helpful when evaluating others’ work since they do not let me become too strict or, on the other hand, too indulgent. Hence, I can always assess my own achievements, as well as those of my peers, adequately. Perspective, prudence, forgiveness, hope, love, and humor are also indisputable advantages for any learner wishing to be successful and to keep on good terms with others.
Teamwork, self-regulation, humility, and social intelligence are viewed by scholars as vital features of healthcare specialists. The ability to work in a team makes me a valuable colleague both at the present stage of development and in the future. Self-regulation helps to organize daily activities, as well as plan future ones and control the pace of their fulfillment (Oyserman et al., 2017). Humility, which is manifested through an adequate and modest assessment of one’s achievements, contributes to positive effects both in the physical and mental health dimensions (Davis et al., 2017). Finally, social intelligence is the skill of understanding oneself and others (Boyatzis et al., 2015). Being socially intelligent promotes my knowledge of people’s feelings and relations, which inevitably have an influence on communication with peers during studies.
Finally, the list of lesser strengths allows identifying the areas of improvement and coming up with ideas to prevent getting bogged down by them. I was surprised to find out that creativity and appreciation of beauty and excellence are my weak points. I believe that I can enhance them by spending more time on my hobby, which is photography. Meanwhile, the lack of zest, bravery, and leadership skills is something I can admit wholeheartedly. Even if I do not intend to occupy a leadership position at work in the future, I understand that it is vital to serving as an excellent example for others whenever I can in order to inspire them. Organizational outcomes are reported to improve considerably when leadership traits are developed appropriately (Alilyyani et al., 2018). In order not to become the victim of my areas for improvement, I will work on promoting them in the nearest future. I will read professional literature and then practice the advice found there. Also, I might ask my professors to give me some additional tasks requiring more responsibility and challenge. Hopefully, by dedicating enough efforts to self-development, I will become more self-confident and will be able to help others to a greater extent than I can now.
References
Alilyyani, B., Wong, C. A., & Cummings, G. (2018). Antecedents, mediators, and outcomes of authentic leadership in healthcare: A systematic review. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 83, 34-64.
Boyatzis, R. E., Gaskin, J., & Wei, H. (2015). Emotional and social intelligence and behavior. In S. Goldstein, D. Princiotta, & J. A. Naglieri (Eds.), Handbook of intelligence: Evolutionary theory, historical perspective, and current concepts (pp. 243-262). Springer.
Davis, D. E., Hook, J. N., McAnnally-Linz, R., Choe, E., & Placeres, V. (2017). Humility, religion, and spirituality: A review of the literature. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 9(3), 242-253.
Oyserman, D., Lewis, N. A., Yan, V. X., Fisher, O., O’Donnell, S. C., & Horowitz, E. (2017). An identity-based motivation framework for self-regulation. Psychological Inquiry, 28(2-3), 139-147.
Timmins, F., King, C., de Vries, J., Johnson, M., Cullen, J. G., & Haigh, C. (2018). Altruism, honesty and religiosity in nursing students. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 27(19-20), 3687-3698.
Wolfteich, C. E., Sandage, S. J., Tomlinson, J., Mettasophia, J. J., & Ventura, D. (2019). Humility and spirituality: New directions in interdisciplinary research. Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality, 19(1), 102-130.