Membership
Building Character &
Resilience Program
Membership
Building Character &
Resilience Program
What are your students' good habits?
Are they optimistic, patient, decisive, confident, courageous, honest...?
Research shows that people with strong CORE CHARACTER habits or virtues are better able to develop self-mastery, take control of their thinking and decision-making, thrive in adversity to tackle setbacks, are less vulnerable to peer group pressure, media influence and impulses, assisting to them build character, resilience & wellbeing.
What is Building Character & Resilience?
Do you ever think about why it’s so difficult to stop scrolling through new social media posts on our phones or drag ourselves away from the latest online game when we’re called for dinner? Or why it’s so easy to give up when something becomes challenging or the going gets tough? Then later, when we think about it, we don’t feel too happy about it because we’ve let ourselves and others down. It’s at these moments that we wish we had more self-control or self-mastery.
How do we develop better self-mastery or self-control? Self-mastery means developing lots of good habits that help us manage our impulses and fears, respect others and think before we act.
Developing good habits allows our character to grow and it’s our CHARACTER that sums up our qualities as a person. Good habits like being hopeful, optimistic and courageous can also help us persevere through challenges or setbacks and help us develop RESILIENCE. In fact, developing good habits means we have more self-belief, feel more secure and we become happier, well-rounded individuals with the ability to call on our core character strengths during difficult times.
We form habits by repeated action. Biting your nails is a habit (a bad one) because you develop it through repetition and before long, you don’t even realise you are doing it. Regular repetition of GOOD HABITS, done for the right reasons, are called VIRTUES. Daily routines help us develop habits. So, for example, when we stick to a daily routine of starting homework at a set time, without wasting time, it gradually gets easier and easier to do until it becomes a good habit or virtue.
It may sound like leading a life full of good habits or virtues is only for wholesome or saintly people, but it’s something we should all strive for. Every day, you probably display many good habits or virtues like honesty or justice, but there are many other virtues that we can develop. For instance, did you know that being joyful, having courage, showing generosity or even being curious is a virtue? Who wouldn’t want to be joyful, courageous and generous? In fact, most people, without knowing it, live out numerous virtues every day. And as we’ll explain, by making virtues part of our daily life, we not only become better human beings, we also build character and resilience.
Your students will be introduced to a new CHARACTER VIRTUE every week. Don’t think of virtues as a wish list of ideal qualities. We need good habits and cannot be happy or resilient without them. If you have poor habits and therefore lack important character virtues, you can only be happy if everything goes your way 100% of the time. The good news is that developing character and resilience can be taught – no one is excluded – and this program will provide your students with practical and helpful information to assist them to develop into kind but strong people who will thrive in the face of adversity and have the ability to make a positive contribution to the world around them.
Plan does not include diaries