The word character derives from the Greek word charakter, which basically means "to impress, sculpt, engrave". In light of this etymology, he considers the character as a stamp used to impress one's own subjectivity on the wax. Whatever the age or background, character building is a continuous learning process that involves the experience and ability to be a leader, and which is achieved through a commitment constantly devoted to individual growth and maturation. Start building your character right away.
Steps
Part 1 of 3: Gaining Experience
Step 1. Take the risks
Just as the athlete must learn to lose to better appreciate victory, so a person must risk failure to build his character. Character is built when a person faces the possibility of failure. Learn how to push yourself to success, manage what comes your way and become a better person no matter what the outcome. Taking the risk means engaging in difficult projects that may seem too complicated to undertake.
- Get involved. Approach that cute bartender and you risk getting rejected by asking him on a date. Volunteer by taking on additional tasks at work, even if you're not sure you'll be able to do them. Decide what you want from life and take it.
- Don't make excuses for doing nothing, but look for the right reasons to act. Take the risk of doing that rock climbing with friends, even if you haven't learned how to do it well and are worried about looking ridiculous. Take the risks of submitting an application for admission to a specific graduate school. Don't make excuses, but find out what motivates you to do something.
- Building character doesn't mean acting recklessly when personal safety is at stake. Driving carelessly or abusing substances has nothing to do with building character. It is about taking risks that lead to an advantage.
Step 2. Surround yourself with strong people
Identify the people you respect in your life, the ones you believe have commendable character traits. Each person appreciates different sides of the character and, therefore, values different people. Decide who you would like to look like, who can make you better and find who matches these criteria.
- Hang out with people older than you. We have a tendency to spend less and less time learning from older people. If you're young, make it a goal to befriend someone much older than you and learn from their point of view. Spend time with older relatives, discussing and learning from them.
- Date people who are very different from you. If you have a quiet and reserved personality, you could take an example from those who make their voices heard and speak outspoken, learning to let go and say what you think.
- Hang out with people you admire. The best way to build your character is to hang out with people you admire, want to be like, and can learn from. Don't surround yourself with flatterers or interested friendships. Connect with people with a strong character and take them as a role model.
Step 3. Get out of your comfort zone
Building your character means learning to handle difficult or uncomfortable situations. Offer to help at-risk children after school or volunteer at your church during your free time. Go to a black metal concert and see what it's like. Find some ways to change your current situation and approach people with complicated characters.
Travel to places you've never been and find a way to feel at home. Walk through a city you've never visited and ask someone for directions
Step 4. Find a little fun job at least once
Cleaning the grease under the meat grinder in a pub? Mixing the mortar in the heat of the summer sun? Serving unhappy customers in a shoe store? Not such a happy way to spend a Saturday afternoon, it's true, but tough jobs are great for tempering your character. Money acquires more value when you understand the effort it takes to earn it.
Having a difficult job will help you learn a lot about how other types of jobs work and understand the difficulties people face. Working at McDonalds, for example, is a difficult and dignified job and a person with a strong character recognizes it. As you work, you will become a more open and understanding person
Step 5. Commit to improve
Building character is an essential part of a lifelong learning process. If you want to become a person who is a source of inspiration for others, a person respected in the place where he lives and considered for his strong character, strive to improve yourself day after day.
- Build your character in small steps. Choose the things you want to work on, one at a time. Perhaps you would like to listen to your partner more effectively or do more at work. Live one day at a time and slowly develop your skills.
- It's normal to look back, back to your younger years, and feel embarrassed. Hideous haircuts, outbursts of anger and immaturity. Don't be ashamed of it. Consider embarrassment as a sign that you are building your character.
Part 2 of 3: Becoming a Leader
Step 1. Learn to empathize
Following his death, a rather stern note was found among Lincoln's papers about a general who had failed to follow certain orders. In this memo Lincoln wrote that he felt "immensely distressed" by the general's conduct. It is a hard, personal and cutting document. Interestingly, he was never sent, probably because Lincoln - a great leader in every respect - had learned to empathize with that officer, who had seen more blood in Gettysburg than Lincoln could have imagined. It should be said that Lincoln gave the general the benefit of the doubt.
- If a friend leaves you in the lurch when you planned to do something together, or if your boss can't remember all the hard work you did at a meeting, let it go if you're a person of character. Learn from the past, be more cautious and ponder your expectations next time.
- A person of character focuses on the situation as a whole. Recalling the general would lead to nothing but remove him from Lincoln, making the situation worse. What's done is done and what's past is past. Try to focus on the future.
Step 2. Let off steam in private
Just because Lincoln didn't send the letter doesn't mean it wasn't important for him to write it. No one, however strong of character, is made of ice. It is normal to get angry, frustrated and upset. It is part of life. Burying these emotions deep inside won't help build your character, so it's important to let off steam sometimes, but privately if you don't want to ruin people's image of you. Find a relaxing activity that will help you process your frustrations and anger so you can get rid of them.
- Describe your anger in a notebook, then tear up the page and burn it. Listen to a Slayer song while lifting weights in the gym. Go run. Find a healthy way to engage your body in pushing away the frustration.
- In the TV series House of Cards - The intrigues of power, Frank Underwood, a stoic and seedy politician, loves to let off steam playing violent video games after a long day of negotiating deals in the House of Representatives. This is more than just a smile-making character trait - everyone needs a way to relax. Find your.
Step 3. Open up to a variety of people
A person of character is able to communicate openly with different types of people. Don't be full of prejudices. Character is built by drawing as much as possible from various categories of people. Have good chats with the guy who works at the club you hang out with and the bartender, as well as with colleagues, friends and family. Hear what they have to say. Be honest with them. All of this will help build your character.
If you need to let off steam, find someone to do it with each other, meet with them so you can open up to each other. Then move on to other conversation topics and focus on the happiest moments. It is not enough to dwell on bad things
Step 4. Lose with dignity
As James Michener once said, the character is revealed on the third and fourth attempts, not the first. How do you cope with a difficult situation or a failure? If you learn to bear defeat and lose with dignity, you can begin to develop a strong character.
- Enter small competitions to learn this skill. It's hard to learn to lose with dignity when it comes to big, life-changing challenges, such as entering a prestigious university, competing for a job, or in equally serious situations. Develop this side of character by participating in party games, playing sports, and joining other small forms of competition, so that you can lay the groundwork for dealing with more important circumstances.
- It also becomes a good winner. Don't forget what it feels like when you don't fail at something, so don't be complacent or critical of the loser. Celebrate your victory in private, but celebrate it.
Step 5. Challenge yourself to achieve difficult goals
A person of character should lead by example of taking on challenges that are not easy. At school, at work or wherever you are, take it upon yourself to carry out difficult projects and commit to doing them the right way.
- At school, don't bet yourself that you'll get "good grades", but challenge yourself to do the best job possible. Maybe 10 is not a high enough mark for what you intend to accomplish.
- At work, offer to accept more responsibilities, work extra hours at the office, and go above and beyond your homework. Whatever you do, do it right.
- At home, work on improving yourself during your free time. Evenings spent checking in vain files on Netflix could be spent learning to play the guitar, starting that novel you always wanted to write right away, or fixing that old bicycle. Take your hobbies seriously.
Part 3 of 3: Growing and Maturing
Step 1. Use setbacks as a source of motivation
FailCon is a Silicon Valley conference that celebrates failure as an essential part of success. Failure is just a small obstacle along the way to achieving what you want, even if it does eliminate one possibility from a list of possibilities. Fail early and often, get a few hits and learn how next time you can rearrange and reset yourself to get a better result.
Tackle failures in a scientific way. If you started a business that went bankrupt, if your band just broke up or if you lost your job, accept bankruptcy. You might consider this a wrong answer to tick on the list of possible right answers. You are simply making your job easier
Step 2. Stop seeking approval from others
Sometimes psychologists speak of internal and external locus of control. The satisfaction in people who have an "internal locus" comes from within, as they try to satisfy themselves and care less about what others think. People with an "external locus", on the other hand, are accommodating. While sacrificing yourself may seem like a positive character trait, pleasing others to please yourself gives people a chance to be in charge of the situation. If you want to take control of life and develop your character, learn to worry about doing what you think is right, not what your boss, partner, or other forces in your life tell you.
Step 3. Think big
Live what you dream of and set your sights on achieving great goals. What would be the best possible version of your life? Go head first. If you want to be an expert musician, move to a big city, form a band and start performing. Don't look for excuses. If you want to be a writer, find a job that gives you time to apply yourself to your passion and set a number of words to write each day for your novel. Write like crazy. Aim for the maximum.
Who has a strong character is also a person who is satisfied with what he has. Maybe for you to stay in your city, get married with those you love and have children is the best possible life you can imagine. Just do it! Ask him and be happy
Step 4. Find a ladder and start climbing
Decide what you want and find the path that takes you there. If you want to be a doctor, see which universities offer you the best study paths to find employment in the future, and grit your teeth to finish medical school. Throw yourself into work and studies and reap the rewards of hard work.
Step 5. Learn to recognize and capture the decisive moments
Significant moments are easy to see in retrospect, those where courage is tested or character is challenged. A person of character learns to recognize and feel those moments, understands what in the future he might regret, to do or not to do, and makes the right choice. There is no recipe for learning how to do all of this, but it is about being honest with yourself and getting to know yourself.
- Try to imagine all the possible outcomes of a given situation. If you are thinking of moving to make a career as an actor, what could happen? What will happen if you stay where you are? Can you accept the consequences of both choices? What does "succeed" mean?
- A person with a strong character, when he recognizes the important moments, makes the right decision. If you are tempted to backstab a colleague to gain an advantage, is this the right choice for you if doing so ensures you a higher pay? Will you be able to live with yourself and the other person after doing this? Only you can make this decision.
Step 6. Keep busy and avoid idleness
Who has a strong character is a person who gets busy, not a talker. When you decide to act, don't put your plans into a hypothetical future, but put them into action immediately, now. Start doing today what you intend to do.
- Strong-tempered people are not indulgent. Spending the day sleeping, staying out all night drinking, and idle time for no reason whatsoever are not usually the behaviors of persistent people. Become a moral guide, not a model of laziness.
- Try to match hobbies with work commitments as much as possible. If you like reading books and daydreaming, enter a university and put your poetic sense to good use. If you'd rather punch a lot, join the gym and start working out. If you do what you want, you will build your character.
