Measure Your Happiness and Discover Your Strengths

Week 1 Rewirements: Measure Your Happiness

and Discover Your Strengths
This week, we’ll begin by assessing our current levels of subjective well-being
before starting the class and learning a bit about our signature strengths. You will
kick off the rewirements by intentionally applying your signature strengths in
your day-to-day life.

Measure your Baseline Happiness

Your first "assignment" is to measure your current level of happiness using one or two
validated psychological surveys. These scores will serve as a “baseline” of your happiness
level at the start of this experience. At the end of the course, you’ll redo the survey to see if
your happiness and overall mood have changed after doing these positive practices for
several weeks. This process will help you understand your journey by giving you a point A and
a Point B. In other words, you will be able to understand what your current happiness level is
right now, how much room for growth you have, and whether you have changed over time as
a result of applying the lessons in this course. You may choose any option or any combination
of options outlined below.

1. The first option is PERMA (an acronym for Positive emotion, Engagement,
Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment— the basic dimensions of
psychological flourishing). The questionnaire is 23 questions and once you
submit your responses, you will receive scores ranging from 0-10 for each pillar
along with scores for overall well-being, health, and negative emotions.
2. The second option is based on The Authentic Happiness Inventory. It’s a quick
set of 24 questions that provides an overall measure of your happiness levels. At
the end of the survey you will receive a score between 1 and 5 based on your
responses. If you plan on using the ReWi app, please note that you will be
prompted to take this survey during the app on-boarding process.
3. The third option may be best suited for those who do not wish to take the online
surveys for various reasons. In this case, you can ask yourself: On a scale of 1-5,
how happy are you with your life right now? Your rating for this question can act
as your baseline happiness metric.
The PERMA Profiler and the Authentic Happiness Inventory are embedded within the
course and available as the next two course items as ungraded plugins. If you are on a mobile
device and/or otherwise unable to view the embedded surveys, then you can link out to the
PERMA Profiler and Authentic Happiness Inventory.
Regardless of which option you choose, please keep track of your score and write it down
somewhere you will remember for later.

When you receive your score, you will likely want to compare to others and will wonder “is my
score “good” or “bad?” While these questions are fair, we encourage you to focus on your
own score and your own improvement.

REWIREMENT HANDOUT:

01_MeasureHappiness_New.pdfPDF File

Open file

Find Your Signature Strengths

This week you will also have an opportunity to identify your character strengths, which we’ll
learn more about in an upcoming lecture. Your character strengths are the positive parts of
your personality that impact the way you think, feel and behave. 

To identify your strengths, take the free, online, research-based character strengths survey
by the VIA Institute on Character. The survey comprises 96 questions and takes about 15
minutes to complete. There are no right/wrong answers, and there are no better/worse
answers. The key is to be authentic, so that you can derive the most from the experience.
After taking the survey, you will get the ranking of your 24 strengths. Print it out if you can and
keep track of your top 5 strengths. Your top 5 strengths are typically your signature strengths,
the characteristics that make you feel energized and engaged. 

Encourage your co-workers, friends, and family to go to the VIA website to take the
questionnaire too, so that you can discuss your strengths and how they contribute to your life
and relationships. Research shows knowing and using your character strengths can
strengthen relationships, boost happiness and improve well-being. After taking the test, you
will get the ranking of your 24 strengths. Make sure to document your top 5 strengths. 

(Note: Laurie Santos and Yale University are not affiliated with the VIA website, but doing the
survey on this website allows you to access the survey easily and for free, and it allows
researchers to learn more about how character strengths work.)

NOTE ON DATA COLLECTION: The VIA Institute on Character is a non-profit

organization dedicated to bringing the science of character strengths to the world through
supporting research, creating and validating surveys of character, and developing practical
tools for individuals and practitioners. Your responses to questionnaires on the VIA’s website
are entirely voluntary and will be used, anonymously, in ongoing research by The VIA Institute
on Character, the creators of the questionnaires, and other researchers with VIA’s permission.
While the data is used anonymously you can also consider using a fake name and email to
participate (although using your real email may be helpful to log back into the site and refer
to your survey results). More information regarding what information is collected, how it is
used, and how it is shared can be found in VIA’s Privacy Policy.

ALTERNATIVE: If you do not feel comfortable sharing your information, you can review
the descriptions of the 24 Character Strengths and self-identify your top strengths.

Use Your Signature Strengths

To get you into the practice of doing intentional and effortful activities to boost your own
happiness, we want you to try to use your top strengths this week. Each day for the following
week, try to use your selected strength in a new way. For example, if curiosity is one of your
strengths, enroll in another Coursera course on a topic you know nothing about; if kindness is
your strength, perform an anonymous favor for someone; and so on. Try to use your strengths
at least once per day all week long. 

Learn more about this exercise in this article, Use Your Strengths to Boost Happiness. You can
find suggestions on ways to use each strength here as well as other strengths-based
strategies to help you flourish here. You will learn more about how to use your strengths in an
upcoming lecture, and can read more by exploring the VIA Website.

Want to skip ahead in the course to learn more about the science behind character strengths?

Watch lecture from Week 5 titled “Good Job” (explanation of Character Strengths

appears within the first 13 minutes of the video)
REWIREMENT HANDOUT:

01_SignatureStrengths.pdfPDF File

Open file

Special Offer for Science of Well-Being Course Participants

The VIA Survey is always free of charge. The VIA Institute offers optional, in-depth reports
and online courses to help you dive deeper into understanding your character strengths. As a
participant in the Science of Well-Being course, you can receive 10% off your first purchase at
checkout. 
Beyond This Course - Learn Even More About Character
Strengths:
 Read more about why Character Strengths are important from the VIA Website
 Read more about each of the 24 character strengths from this book
 Read more about the main research on Character Strengths from this book
 Read more about the research on the power of using your Character Strengths