Qualities

The joy you perceive and obtain in life absolutely depends on the kind of person you are

Your character qualities are a list of one-word adjectives that describe the kind of person you are. There is a set of qualities you must possess and live by in order to be the happiest person you can be. The purpose of this section of your life plan is to specify this set of qualities.

Since the greatest joy comes from the greatest improvement, your list of qualities should answer the question: “What is the best kind of person I could be?”

Who are you now?

Every improvement requires a starting point. You can’t navigate using a map unless you know your starting point. The most effective progress toward attaining your potential will require an accurate idea of who you presently are.

List out your present qualities in your life plan document. For each quality, use only one word, and look up and write out a definition written in your own words.

Who you are is not determined by how you feel, but how you act

Your qualities are not demonstrated by how you feel; they are demonstrated by what you do. Your character is what you do right now, for the reasons you do it right now. Acting in accordance with a trait means you have the trait, and acting against the trait means you do not have it.¹

Any residuals from the past tend to be limited to how much easier it is to continue in a pattern than it is to do something different. The past character decisions that do carry into your present reputation are, more often than not, the mistakes and not the victories.²

For most people, the fact that you are what you do works against them, as the positive qualities they demonstrate on average are regularly vanquished by momentary negative deviations. But this principle can be used to your advantage. The fact that you can destroy your character in one decision means that you can also turn over a new leaf at any moment, no matter where you find yourself.

You can change who you are moment by moment through how you begin to act right now. No matter where you are, you can improve into something better.

All character changes, no matter how great, are determined from momentary decisions. What you do, how you do it, and why you do it defines who you are. All of this information is encoded, refined, and executed from the life plan.

Triangulating who you really are

Each person has several selves: the person they believe they are, the person they project to others, how they are seen by those that like them, and how they are seen by those who do not. The real you is a composite of all of these things.

What are your qualities according to you? It’s not uncommon to make the mistake of presuming that how you see yourself is how you really are, but you have some faults that you will struggle to see and some that you will refuse to admit. How you see yourself will tend to more closely match how you desire to be rather than how you really are.

Differences between how you see yourself and how others see you can be powerful indications of areas where you can improve how you think, feel, and act to become more of the person you desire to be.

What are your qualities according to someone you trust? Others whom you trust provide valuable external feedback on how you behave that can surpass the limitations of your blindspots and honesty. Because you trust them, you should earnestly consider their perspective.

What are your qualities according to someone who dislikes you? Those who dislike you may have a negative bias in how they see you, but their absence of any positive bias means that they can also sometimes be the most honest source of external feedback. Usually, the more that what other people think about you bothers you, the more likely it is that there is a grain of truth in at least some of their negative opinion of you.

Why are you how you are?

For most people, who you are will be a composite of many inputs, only some of which are clear, coalescing into who you are in an arc so subtle it might be imperceptible over time.

Everyone has a unique backstory. For each quality you currently possess, you might trace its genesis back to something internal, such as a choice you made, or something external, such as something that someone else did or didn’t do. Some qualities might seem to have been with you from as early an age as you can imagine.

Most people will not be much different over time, and when they are, they tend to be worse—not better. This is not an inevitable outcome.

Some have not worked on their character because they don’t know it is possible, others because they didn’t know it was necessary, and others because they don’t know how. You can change how you are. You can become the kind of person you want to be. The life plan will show you how while helping you find the reasons why to do so.

No matter your past, and no matter who you are today, there are still many improvements that remain possible. Your life story has not finished being written until you stop living. You can change who you are. You do so with each daily choice you make.

The life plan provides you a mechanism to decide and become who you want to be

In a nutshell, your life plan is you on paper. It is the mapping between who you are and who you will become. Your life plan will specify the details of how to be the best person you can be in such clarity that it will simplify the whole process down to what you do moment by moment, one day at a time.

The life plan gives you a convenient and effective way to improve your character. Your life plan provides enough detail that you can continuously ask yourself what the person described in your life plan would do, and know the answer.

Humans have an incredible ability to adopt the character of another. We have an astonishing capacity to turn experiences into narratives. From very few exposures to a person, we can begin to accurately predict what they would do in unseen situations. If you go through life asking yourself what this person would do in your place, you will fill in many of the gaps that written tasks cannot fully describe. As you do what that person would do, you will actually become like that person.

In the other parts of your life plan—your goals and tasks—you will describe what the ideal person does. In the qualities, you describe how the ideal person is. Your qualities are determined from your why—your purpose. They are implemented by your what—your goals and tasks.

Your life plan is where you design your character and map it down to the daily level. While your character stretches across the whole life plan, your qualities section is the core, as it specifically describes the kind of person you would like to be. Your qualities describe the avatar of the most joyous person you can imagine. Your qualities should answer the question: “how would I have to be to have the most joy I can imagine is possible?”

The goals and tasks you write will implement how you act as that person, as enumerated through your beliefs section and prioritized through your values section. The tasks you complete each day are where you implement your character. As you execute your life plan on a daily basis, you will be the person you desire to be.

Who do you need to be to achieve your purpose?

You should think of your purpose as a challenge that you must grow to overcome. Many hero movies have a training montage, because one critical aspect of a good story is a challenge that the hero must grow to become able to overcome.

Your life plan should be a healthy mix of things you are doing already and new or expanded qualities that stretch you. If your qualities don’t require growth, you aren’t aiming high enough.

You will use these qualities throughout the rest of the life plan to implement those qualities in the goals you set and the tasks you accomplish daily to align with them.

Who do you wish to be?

Do you love the kind of person you are? Are there things about yourself that you aren’t proud of ? Are there ways in which you wish you were a better person?

Plenty of people can identify ways of being that they value, but do not embody. Few people make a plausible plan to grow toward the ideal they can imagine.

How would you change your character qualities if you could be however you wished? How would you change your personality? How would you change how you interact with others? How would you change how you viewed yourself and others, and situations in life?

What qualities would you use to describe the ideal person? If you could carve your own character from a block of marble, what qualities would you choose?

You will answer these questions by listing character qualities in your life plan.

The power of describing character changes as if they’ve already happened

Improvement is hard work, so you want to leverage every advantage that your body and mind give you, and they give you quite a few. Most people take the path of least resistance, where your natural

Quality 1
Quality 2
Purpose Quality g
Qualities Principle q.1
Values Principle q.2
Beliefs» Principle q.p
Rule q.p.r

As you carry yourself through each day, try to keep the definitions of your qualities in mind. Whenever you face a situation, ask yourself what the ideal person you have described would do.

Define principles for each quality

Qualities are just single word descriptors. Single words can be unfamiliar, arcane, or ambiguous, and each of these attributes will add obstacles that make it harder for you to act like the person you describe in your life plan. The more details you have, the easier it will be to understand and apply how and why the person described in your life plan would act in every situation. In order to provide greater detail, you will enumerate a list of principles for each desired quality in your life plan.

Principles are generalized descriptions of behavior. Rules are derived from principles and describe specific behavior in specific situations. Principles are less specific, and give general guidance across a broad range of situations.

A good resource to help you enumerate principles is to look up the quality in the dictionary. Dictionary definitions tend to be formal and precise. Rewrite the definition in your own words, aiming for a single sentence. If you can think of several different aspects of the quality, or if it’s too tricky to fit your own definition into a single clear sentence, split your definition into separate sentences.

Each sentence you form should be worked over until it is short and plain. To finish the process of decomposing your quality into principles, rewrite each sentence as if it were a description about yourself.

Here are some examples of possible principles for the quality “I am honest”:

• I do not lie.
• I tell the truth.
• I live according to the truth.
• I seek to know more about the truth.

You’ll notice that these principles do not describe specific situations, but provide general guidance.

As you write your principles, make sure you are writing as if you already possess them. Do not describe the principle as something you will be, but something you are. Don’t write about what you are trying to do or will do: “I’m trying to quit smoking,” but say: “I don’t smoke.”

From day to day, remember your principles and use them as a way of indicating what you should do in situations where your rules do not specifically apply.

Enumerate rules from each principle

Rules are descriptions of how to act in specific situations so as to implement the principle and quality described in your life plan. Rules are the solutions for the problem of how to act in certain situations worked out ahead of time.

To make rules, simple describe each principle in higher detail. The more specifically you plan out an action, the more likely you will do it, and the more likely you will be successful.

Make a bullet list of significant situations where the quality in question would be demonstrated. In each bullet, describe the ideal behavior in concise detail. Write each bullet in terms of behavior that would demonstrate having the quality, whether that means what you will do or what you will not do.

As an example, you might enumerate the following rules for the principle “I tell the truth”:

• I will not say something I do not agree with in order to please others.
• When someone asks me what I think about something, I will tell them what I really think.
• When someone says something that I believe is false, I will ask them why they believe what they do, compare why I believe what I do, and share my own belief and reasons if I continue to regard them as more correct.
• Etc.

You’ll want to keep your rules short and snappy. You will call these rules to mind throughout your day to guide your behavior to align with the qualities you seek. Make them as specific and short as you can: “When someone cuts me off in traffic, I smile and wave.”

Consult your rules often throughout each day. When one applies, do what the rule says. When you face situations where you don’t have a rule, immediately write yourself a note to revisit this during your next planning session to think more about it and perhaps create a new or better rule.

A full example of the process from quality to rules

Suppose you want to be generous. If you look up generous in the Oxford dictionary, you’ll see “showing a readiness to give more of something, as money or time, than is strictly necessary or expected.” You can enumerate the principles for “I am generous” as:

• I give more than is needed or expected.
• I look for ways to help others.
• Etc.

Next, you’ll want to enumerate some rules. Think through your average day. Suppose that when you get up and use the bathroom, sometimes you leave the seat up. Rule 1: “I put the seat down.” Suppose that when you get to the office, there are usually donuts, but they never buy enough for everyone, and if you get there too late, they are gone. Rule 2: “I don’t take the last donut.” You can imagine the rest.

Dealing with competing principles through specific rules

There are many potential character qualities that are difficult, if not impossible, to carry at the same time. It is difficult and may even be impossible to be both assertive and cautious, or just and merciful, or patient and productive.

Any strict mutual exclusivity between character traits can be resolved through extreme specificity in how opposing character traits should interact. For example, you could be assertive when you have sufficiently strong reasons and cautious whenever you don’t.

These specifications are often not just when two positive qualities compete with one another, but also when you have a single quality that would be good to have in some cases and bad in others. For example, empathy is regarded as a universally positive quality by many, but it can easily become a vice when it is used in situations where doing so leads to greater harm through triggering even worse second order consequences. Your rule could be, “I will help relieve present suffering except where doing so would increase future suffering.”

Defining qualities from rules

Defining principles and rules from qualities is not always the best order. Sometimes, it is better to think about how an ideal person would act in specific situations, extrapolate this to a set of principles, and then distill a quality from those.

For example, if you’re a parent and you don’t like how you sometimes yell when your child ignores you, you might write: “When my child ignores me, I calmly walk over to them and have a chat about it.” What is the principle here? “I do not react to situations I do not like by yelling.” What is the quality? “I am patient.”

Once you have climbed from rule to principle to quality, you can work back down enumerating additional principles and rules to fully flesh out the quality.

Making changes to yourself and to your qualities section

Most people will find it much easier to enumerate potential improvements than to implement them. Instead of seeing your list of character changes as something you need to do all at once, prioritize them according to their impact on your purpose, and begin by focusing on the first one. If you keep thinking about and working on the highest priority quality, you will soon find that you have improved enough in that area that another quality has become the highest priority.

Every time you make a change to your qualities, you will read the change once per day and try to think about it throughout the day until you find yourself living it without thinking.³ If you slip up on one, make a point to add it back to the daily review list until you firm it up.

Make it till you make it

Your list of qualities becomes your recipe for how you will act. Throughout each day, face every situation as if you are playing the part of the person you have written down.

Some would contend that this approach sounds an awful lot like the adage “fake it till you make it.” Character is built through decisions over time. Here’s a more accurate but less fun phrase: “Make it till you make it.”

Who you are is what you do and why you do it. There is no magic switch that happens after you’ve lived according to some quality for an arbitrary amount of time. If you act in the moment as one with the quality would, you have that quality—at least for that moment. It is easy to have a certain quality in just one moment, and realizing this is the key to making sweeping improvement in your life. The hard part is keeping it. Any attribute you can practice for a moment is thereafter yours to lose.

The necessity of continuing to live true to the qualities you have temporarily demonstrated might seem stressful, but it is yet another one of those things that seem hard only because we don’t realize that everyone—including you—is already doing it. You are already who you are, and you are only that way because you consistently live true to your present qualities. What is discussed here isn’t the suggestion to adopt the consistent practice of certain qualities, but rather to choose better qualities to practice.

An important point missed by those who say “fake it till you make it” is that. It’s a false and you are never finished making it detrimental belief to assume that any quality will ever be automatic and enduring. Just one lapse in many qualities, such as honesty or trustworthiness, instantly robs you of those qualities for a long time, no matter how long they were true before. You are never done making it.

Personal change requires work, just like every other kind of change

Most people don’t improve their qualities very much, and some not at all, but it isn’t because character improvement is any harder than any other change—it’s just less often pursued.

It’s not uncommon for people to care about what they look like. Many people watch what they eat and work out to get or stay in shape, spend money on nice clothing, or spend considerable time on grooming, but comparatively few make any comparable investment into their character.

Character improvement lies opposite of human nature. A little improvement requires a lot of intentional effort, and a lot of improvement requires a lot more of the same.

Do you place as much time and effort on the quality of your character as you do on your physical appearance? If not, why not?

Coming to the point where you need to break the rules, principles, or even qualities for the right reasons

Rules are always created for a higher purpose. Sometimes, keeping that higher purpose requires breaking the rules.

Rules are specific descriptions of behavior in a specific situation. The problem is that situations differ one from another, and sometimes the behavior more true to the principle will actually require you to break the rule. This might seem hard to believe for anyone who hasn’t had extensive experience in highly regimented situations, such as the military.

There’s a time and place where the spirit of the law requires you to violate the letter of the law. While it is true that the major applicability of rules is why they are attractive in the first place, anyone who is serious about living a certain character quality is going to run up against a situation like this sooner or later. While the occasional need to break the rules can be abused to justify poor choices, it is absolutely necessary to learn to apply them with prudence, honesty, and wisdom if you really want to fully embody a character quality.

Conflict can appear at the principle and quality levels, too. For example, you may encounter situations where you find a conflict between being just and merciful, patient and proactive, calm and assertive, etc.

One of the strengths of the hierarchy of character, quality, principle, rule is that the parent category gives overriding guidance to the subordinate one. When you find yourself questioning whether a rule, principle, or quality should be broken, do what aligns best with your purpose and the remaining categories.