Happiness Strategies to Use in the New Year
January 3, 2016 by Dr. Ryan Niemiec ·
Since 2015 flew by in a flash, you may have missed some of these posts about boosting happiness and well-being. These are my top 5 blogs from the past year. Each article deals with character strengths and/or mindfulness strategies that you can use to start your new off on... Read More
Use Your Strength of Creativity to Break Your Pouting Habit
December 22, 2015 by Dr. Ryan Niemiec ·
We are all guilty of it. The pointless game of feeling sorry for ourselves, otherwise known as pouting. I’m right there with you! But, I’ve figured out a way to use a character strength to break the habit and actually find something good in the situation. Last month, I... Read More
A Mindful Heart
November 9, 2015 by Dr. Ryan Niemiec ·
There is a lot of research on the benefits of simply practicing mindfulness. But, what if we want to take it one step further and practice mindfulness to lead to another outcome, such as using mindfulness to be more heartful? When we used the word “heart” we tend to... Read More
Top 10 NEW Research Findings on Character Strengths
September 17, 2015 by Dr. Ryan Niemiec ·
The 2nd annual Character Day is tomorrow, September 18th! This is a day for everyone around the world to focus on the BEST qualities in all human beings- character strengths. In honor of this “holiday” I have rounded up some of the latest and greatest recent research on character... Read More
Signature Strengths-Frequency Analysis
August 18, 2015 by VIA Institute on Character ·
Chris Peterson and Marty Seligman define signature strengths as “strengths of character that a person owns, celebrates, and frequently exercises”. They recommend taking a look at the top 5 ranked VIA character strengths as a point of departure in the process of identifying signature strengths. In August of last... Read More
Character Strengths in Practice
August 18, 2015 by VIA Institute on Character ·
Research on character strengths by Chris Peterson and colleagues has been monumental to the field of positive psychology and has ushered in a new science of character that involves a classification system (VIA Classification) and a scientific measurement tool (VIA Survey). Over the last decade, this research has spurred... Read More
Character Strengths and Goal-Setting
August 18, 2015 by VIA Institute on Character ·
Practitioners help clients set meaningful goals and use their strengths. Most practitioners know about the benefits of using signature strengths (those strengths that are energizing, feel authentic to use, are readily identified by others, and typically used across multiple settings). Research supports this (Rust et al., 2009; Seligman et... Read More
“Characterizing” the Workplace: Using Character Strengths to Create Sustained Success
August 18, 2015 by Dr. Neal Mayerson ·
Introduction Organizations cannot succeed in a sustained manner with only 1 in 5 of its employees fully engaged and motivated and with 1 in 5 employees either dreading work or wishing they could just stay at home instead (Asplund, Lopez, Hodges, & Harter, 2007; VIA Institute, 2015). Business is... Read More
Integrating Mindfulness and Character Strengths
August 18, 2015 by VIA Institute on Character ·
In this post we will answer these common questions about Mindfulness and the integration of Mindfulness and Character Strengths: -What is mindfulness? -What are character strengths? -Why integrate mindfulness and character strengths? -How do you practice with mindfulness and character strengths? What is mindfulness? The scientific definition of mindfulness... Read More
Your Daily Depression Depressor
July 30, 2015 by Dr. Ryan Niemiec ·
I had an eye-opening conversation with one of my clients the other day. This client, Joan, is a middle-aged woman who has suffered from depression for many, many years. Over the course of our meetings, I’ve been encouraging her to use mindfulness strategies and work on using her signature... Read More