Do you want to bring real success into your life?
You have to cultivate yourself – just like you’d cultivate a garden – to be your very best. Remember, everything you need to achieve success and an extraordinary life is already within you. The good news is, the character traits you need to be happy and successful don’t happen by luck or accident, but rather originate in habits that you can build one day at a time.
Who we are at our core largely defines our character. So when everything is stripped away and we stand completely naked with nothing between us and the mirror of life, when we are without clothing or career, without a car or a house, with nothing we can hide behind, then and only then will we be left to recognize the power of our character.
Each character trait is crucial to our happiness. If we corrupt one, our happiness will be compromised. It’s that simple. Our character is the foundation for our happiness and success. Just like with a house, if we remove the foundation, the house starts to crumble. If we don’t pay attention to our character and cultivate it every single day, our happiness and success will disappear.
Here are our TOP 10 character traits that will help you live an abundant, healthy and happy life.
#1 Be Grateful
Make being grateful a way of life and be thankful for every lesson life throws at you. It’s easy to be thankful for a gift, a promotion or a helping hand, but to be grateful when things are tough will open up opportunities that will allow us to maintain happiness and achieve success. Being grateful every single day also means to appreciate the common and ordinary things, rather than taking everything for granted. Be grateful for the simple things in life and you will be able to appreciate achieving your goals so much more.
#2 Be Courageous
Growth is an essential part of achieving happiness and success and courage will allow us to learn and grow throughout our entire life. Having courage means we are able to confront our weakness and grab a hold of every life-changing opportunity. Courage allows us to step out of our comfort zone and into the unknown. Courage gives us the strength to open our heart again after it’s been broken and it makes us try something we’ve never done before. We aren’t afraid to speak our mind and live our values. We can master our fears and take a stand. All of this is required to achieve success and happiness so be courageous and live life to the fullest.
#3 Use Common Sense
It may seem like something that goes without saying, but unfortunately the average person doesn’t use it. Common sense is something you accumulate as the result of your life experiences over a period of time. It is the ability to learn from your life experiences and then apply those lessons to future experiences. Common sense is a character trait that will enable you to become increasingly more effective over time.
#4 Be Humble
Being humble means that we accept our limitations even though we acknowledge our unlimited potential. It’s a quiet confidence and inner strength that allows for us to be vulnerable. Having humility means that we are teachable, because we are open to correction and constructive criticism without being emotionally distraught. Humble people are wide open to the opportunities to improve and develop and humility is the corner stone to happiness and success, because being humble leads to immense personal growth.
#5 Be Honest
If you want to earn the trust and respect of others, you have to be brutally honest, straightforward and open. If you say you’ll do something, actually do it. Be sure that your words match your actions and you’ll be able to enjoy an inner confidence and joy as the amazing side effect of being honest. Just as important, if not more important, as being true to others, is that we are completely honest with ourselves. Don’t allow yourself to live out of synch with who you are at your core just to please others or to fit in. Happiness and success is built on honesty and truth.
#6 Be Tolerant
When you master the character trait of being tolerant, you will be able to tolerate your own mistakes as well as the mistakes of others, you have the ability to adapt to change easily and you are open to different ideas and attitudes. Success and happiness come when we are able to tolerate the uncertainty of life and don’t have the need to control every single aspect or person, but can accept what is and make the best of it.
#7 Be Self-Aware
Self-awareness – acquiring the knowledge of our strengths and weaknesses – requires deep self-exploration of our emotions, feelings, thoughts and behaviors. Being self-aware is an extremely valuable character trait that will ultimately lead to success and happiness because we are able to honestly admit what we still have to learn and when we need a helping hand. There is nothing wrong with making a mistake, but if we try to hide it, we show a lack of integrity and lose the respect and trust of others.
#8 Be Intuitive
When you have the ability to understand something right away without any need for conscious reasoning and you are open to the mysterious workings of your mind, you will open yourself up to creative ideas. Through intuition you will find solutions to problems that your conscious mind may not be able to comprehend. It’s that gut feeling with its pulls and nudges that will lead you in the right direction. If a problem is ambiguous and there is no precedent that you can follow, your intuition will give you the direction to take action.
#9 Be Passionate
To sustain the level of focus and effort your life demands in order to reach success and happiness, you have to be passionate about what you do. When you are passionate, work doesn’t feel like work anymore, you are able to focus on your goals and you have the drive and enthusiasm to do whatever needs to be done in order to achieve your goals, even take risks when it is necessary. Never settle and always strive do do your best. If you are passionate about what you do, you will have the motivation to continually improve your skills and expand your knowledge and competency. Passion is the fuel that will make you reach your full potential.
#10 Be a Life-Long Learner
If you want to be successful, you have learn and grow throughout your entire life. Having the ability and motivation to be a life-long learner is essential in today’s ever changing world and we are not just talking about the knowledge you will receive from books and classes. Deep self-reflection is a detrimental part of continual learning and most of all, you have to learn and grow through all your life experiences. Question everything and learn from your mistakes.
Keep in mind… If you live your life like most people do, you will get what most people get. If you settle, you will get a life that is settled. If you give your very best every single day, your best will give back to you. Nobody plans on being mediocre, mediocrity happens when you don’t pay attention. So if you want to succeed in life, you need to learn the character traits that will make you successful and live them every single day.
BE COURAGEOUS AND HUMBLE. DETERMINED AND GREAT. FEARLESS AND THANKFUL.
Joschi & Monika
#BoldNaked