How to Develop Your Character

Each of us has a unique reputation or character that comes from the inside, develops over time, and does not change quickly. Your character is a personal alignment between what you say you believe is important, and how you act—your personal integrity. Public and private behavior is an indication of character. You can choose to develop either good or bad character, and to strengthen and improve it. It’s under your total control. Only you can allow your character to be compromised or changed. To pinpoint what needs to be done to further develop your character and maintain a proper perspective as you address problems with personal integrity, consider these five steps.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Willingness to honestly evaluate your character
• Block of time to focus on your character analysis
• Notebook and pen

1. Remain flexible. Most people don’t like change, and character change can be painful and uncomfortable. When starting the character-building process, remember that your efforts could turn out just as you planned, better than you anticipated, worse than you expected, or just plain different.

2. Solicit honest feedback about your existing character. Asking for frank and sincere feedback requires openness and vulnerability. This means that you can and most likely will get your feelings hurt. When this happens, don’t brood or sulk; look for truth in the feedback that can be used to build your character—not tear it down.

3. Learn from your failures. Admit it and accept appropriate responsibility for any failures you make. Do not blame others. If possible, repair any damage, fix the problem, and set the situation right. Identify key lessons learned from every mistake or failure for future improvement.

4. Make tough ethical decisions. Improving your character inevitably requires taking a hard stand on moral issues. You may have to swallow your pride, deal with unfairness and be unpopular when making good decisions involving difficult issues.

5. Handle success properly. Success tests a person’s character better than failure does. If you define success based solely on how many possessions you have; how much money you have in the bank, and fame or achievements; you are in danger of weakening your character.

Tips & Warnings

• Character is a state of being and is a matter of the heart. Unlike observable behaviors, it is often viewed as intangible, and until recent years, was not recognized as a key component of personal and professional success. Unfortunately, there have been too many public business and personal failures associated with proven character breakdowns.
• Developing and improving your character is a lifelong process. Every time you fail to do what you know is right your character is weakened.
• Use the resources below to help you to further develop your character.

Resources

• Character Matters
• Top 10 Career Resources

[changeling]

on 6/19/2008 Great article on this subject. Well done.

[L1onherd]

on 6/18/2008 very good article!

[coachmac4]

on 6/18/2008 Very good comments on character! 5 stars!