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99 Positive Character Traits List (And How To Develop A Good Character) PDF
99 Positive Character Traits List (And How To Develop A Good Character) PDF
99 Positive Character Traits List (And How To Develop A Good Character) PDF
N.B., Click here to get a FREE blank, printable Character Trait Tracker template as part of
FASTER TO MASTER‘s FREE Productivity Templates download.
So you want to be a better person by building good character traits? Perhaps you’d like to be
“kind”, “loving” or “generous”. Maybe you wish you had “discipline”, “patience” or “grit”.
Sceptics will say, “It’s impossible!”, “It can’t be done!” or “I was born this way!”
That doesn’t mean the path’s quick or easy. It takes sacrifice, persistence and effort.
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Because the only difference between you and your heroes is character. And when you reforge
your nature accordingly, you’ll find their footsteps far easier to follow.
Where does this journey begin? What should you take with you? And whom?
By the time you’re done here today, you’ll answer all of those questions. And what’s more,
you’ll have a list of 99 good character traits to inspire you, a set of free value tracking
templates to support you and a foolproof five-stage process to guide every step.
Core values (a.k.a personal values) are theoretical ideals of thought, word or deed;
To understand why building character traits is the focus of this guide, let’s dive deeper.
Anyone (or any company) can claim or aspire to “tolerance” or “equality”. But it’s not till those
values are expressed consistently and instinctively in their actions that they become traits.
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And it’s not till they become traits that they impact you and the people around you.
When we focus on values there’s a tendency to talk a lot then “set and forget”. We decide to be
“kind”, “generous” and “loving”. We may even write those words down. But until we change
how we act in times that demand them, core values are no more than ideas.
That’s why we focus on traits. Obsessing over values is like getting distracted by the half-way
line when your gaze should be fixed on the end-zone.
We all know people (including ourselves) whose “true colours” don’t always match their
veneers, who care more about being seen as “modest”, “unselfish” or “thoughtful” than about
actually being those things or who put on good acts but betray their true hearts under
pressure.
This is the essential division between personality and character traits. Personality traits
describe what you do, character traits describe who you are and when the stakes are high or
your ability to fake it is low, character always wins out.
Core values are theoretical ideals, positive personality traits can be simulated but positive
character traits go right to the heart of us. They’re deep-seated, long-term patterns of action,
reaction and compromise that become especially hard to fake when we’re stressed out or
tired.
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To that end, I’ve collected a long list of potential good character traits below from sources as
diverse as Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations (Summary), Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly
Effective People (Summary), religious texts and even handbooks for aspiring samurai and
chivalric knights.
Of course, no list is exhaustive (and you’ll find longer ones out there ). I haven’t included
neutral or negative character traits and I’ve drawn the line at becoming a values thesaurus.
But what you’ll find below is a comprehensive list of the most common good traits and
personal attributes from the high-quality sources I pillaged.
The result is a colourful collection of “99 values to live by” which I’ve supplemented with
definitions (based mostly on the Oxford English Dictionary ).
Don’t let the list overwhelm you. Skim through it, let it soak and feel free to make a note of
any traits that particularly inspire you. (We’ll be using those later!)
When you’re done, we’ll cover a practical step-by-step process to build them into your life.
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24. Disciplined – Doing what you know you should do (even if you don’t feel like it).
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50. Liberal – Respecting behaviour and opinions different from one’s own
54. Loving – Feeling and showing deep, unselfish affection for others.
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78. Respectful – Showing regard for the feelings, wishes or rights of others.
80. Self-disciplined – Doing what you know you should do (even if you don’t feel like it).
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95. Unselfish – Putting the needs or wishes of others before one’s own.
N.B., For a huge list of 638 positive, neutral and negative character traits (though without
definitions), click here .
For example, “modesty” just describes many small routines of thought, word and deed which
create patterns of behaviour that are consistent with our idea of what’s “modest”.
But there’s a challenge. Because unlike big habits, the ingredients of character traits are hard
to pick out and isolate.
What are “tolerance”, “curiosity” or “acceptance”? Defining those sums as their parts would be
a challenging task. And, even if we could deconstruct their thousands of sub-routines, there’d
be too many to individually work on.
Specifically, we’re going to keep track of every time we act in a way that fails to live up to
whatever trait we’re trying to embody.
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Building character traits is a long journey and starting with the ones that excite you (instead of
those you think you should work on) will make you far more likely to succeed.
There are two main ways to tackle this: the long list approach or the hero approach.
For the long list approach – reread the list of good character traits above and simply make a
note of any traits that jump out at you.
Don’t overthink it. You should easily find 10 or more ideas in a couple of minutes.
For the hero approach – make a list of the people you know (or know of) who most inspire you.
Dead or alive, fact or fiction, it’s all good.
Then, when you’ve finished, reflect on the two or three traits you most look up to in each of
those people.
Both approaches work well, though one big advantage of the hero approach is that it unlocks
something I call “hero based thinking“.
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Being able to picture a hero and think about what they’d do in a given situation makes certain
kinds of decisions and trade-offs easier to process.
To pick the ONE character trait you should start with, look at your short list ask:
“Which of these traits would most transform my life if I already embodied it?”
Whittle your selection down to a few candidates, then draw lots between the survivors.
N.B., A big part of you is going to want to tackle three, four or five values at once. My
recommendation is to strongly resist that temptation.
Consider this: if you could perfectly embody even ONE trait like “discipline” or “kindness”,
there’s a good chance you’ll have changed beyond all recognition.
Start with ONE trait and you can always come back for more later.
No matter how badly you want to be “driven” it’s never going to happen if you’re surrounded
by those who are lazy. Each time you start making progress, your subconscious is going to
fight hard to drag you right back in line with the group.
Conversely, it’s very hard not to be more “disciplined”, “curious” or “grateful” if the people
you live with and love have those traits. Rather than become an outsider, you will naturally
take positive action to help fall in line with (and learn from) your peers.
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The upshot is this: If you don’t have a character trait that you want, there’s a good chance the
people around you don’t have it either. But if you want to develop that character trait you
must do whatever it takes to change that equation.
Change the area you live in, the job you do, the books you read, the places you hang out and
the hobbies you enjoy. Look actively for ways to spend more time with people you’d happily
trade places with. Do it offline, do it online, do it one, three then five days a week.
Just do it.
Set yourself up for success and you’ll surf all the way into the beach.
But judging consistently whether we were “loving” or not overall today becomes tricky. And
even if we could, the time it takes to embody new traits means we’d end up with a lot of ✘s on
our tracker. ✘s that would hide the helpful details of our progress.
So instead of using passes or fails, it makes more sense to count the number of times that we’re
“just”, “loyal” or “neat” as a quick way to measure our growth.
But there’s another catch. Because even if I count fifty instances of “kindness” today, a
positive counting system could overlook the one hundred instances of “unkindness” that also
took place.
So, to keep things simple, it makes more sense to count the negative instances of a character
trait than its positives. At least that way we can be sure that we’re not not what we’re trying to
be.
The solution then is as follows: every evening, review the day and make a note of each time
you failed to live up to a trait. (N.B., this becomes much easier if you’ve recorded an Actual
Schedule that can help jog your memory.)
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As you string more and more days together, your tracker will looking something like this:
Over time you’ll start to spot trends in your actions and without even thinking, you’ll start
making automatic interventions to improve them. You’ll also get a much better idea of what a
character trait really means to you and which part of you you need to work on.
One last word of advice: Remember that when you tackle a character trait, you’re not
changing one habit. You’re changing thousands of them. And, what’s more, the behaviours
you’re working on are some of the most deep-seated and automatic habits of all.
Shaping your traits can take a very long time. But set yourself up for success, stick with it and
before long, you won’t recognise the person you once used to be.
If you’re using the values tracker in the TRACKTION Planner or FREE productivity templates,
just shift your existing traits one space to the right and begin tracking your new trait in the
left-hand most column.
Over time, you’ll grow your list of traits to as many as five active targets at once, some of which
you may have worked on for months (or even years).
If you get overwhelmed, don’t be afraid to cut back down to one character trait. And don’t
worry if it takes a long time to make progress.
Though the process is simple, changing your character isn’t easy. But the rewards when you
get there are worth it.
1. List all the character traits from F2M’s list of good traits that you’d be excited to work
on;
2. List the people that inspire you and their best traits to your list;
3. Pick ONE character trait from your list that would most transform your life;
N.B., If you’ve completed a Wheel of Life on page 6 of the TRACKTION Planner your ONE
trait should relate to your lowest scoring area of life.
4. Make a list of people you know who will sabotage or support your progress;
5. Set next actions to spend more time with and around supportive kinds of people;
7. Write your new character trait in the first column of the value tracker;
10. Resolve to act as if you already embodied your primary character trait.
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As I said at the start of this guide: the only difference between you and your heroes is
character. And when you reforge your nature accordingly, you’ll find their footsteps
surprisingly easy to follow.
So get to work!
➡ Leave a comment and tell me what character trait you’ll work on.
And remember “you cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge one
yourself,” (James Anthony Froude) and “character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the
life of an individual and of nations alike.” (Theodore Roosevelt)
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