Perseverance and Flourishing | Seminar

This seminar explores the VIA character strength of perseverance as a core contributor to academic success, resilience, and long-term flourishing in higher education. Perseverance is defined as the capacity to sustain effort and commitment toward meaningful goals despite difficulty, delay, or setback. Drawing on positive psychology, resilience research, and goal pursuit theory, the seminar examines how perseverance supports adaptive coping, self-regulation, and achievement without promoting burnout.

Participants are guided through reflective exercises, applied scenarios, multiple-choice knowledge checks, and implementation planning using the WOOP (Wish–Outcome–Obstacle–Plan) framework. The seminar distinguishes optimal use of perseverance from both underuse (avoidance, discouragement, withdrawal) and overuse (rigidity, exhaustion, burnout), encouraging balanced and sustainable goal pursuit. Through structured reflection and behavioural planning, students develop strategies to maintain effort under pressure while protecting well-being.

This resource is designed for university contexts and may be used in leadership development, student success initiatives, mentoring programmes, and personal development curricula.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this seminar, participants will be able to:

1. Define perseverance as a VIA character strength and explain its role in academic and personal flourishing.
2. Differentiate between optimal use, underuse, and overuse of perseverance in a university context.
3. Identify common barriers to sustained effort, including fixed mindset, burnout, and discouragement after setbacks.
4. Apply practical strategies (goal-setting, growth mindset, support-seeking, structured planning) to strengthen perseverance.
5. Develop a personalised implementation plan using the WOOP framework to sustain effort toward a meaningful academic or personal goal.
6. Recognise the relationship between perseverance and resilience, self-discipline, and long-term achievement without compromising wellbeing.