How to Build Character Through Integrity

culled from:wikihow.com

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." - William Shakespeare, 1564-1616
The wonderful thing about character and integrity, which are intimately related, is that they are one of the few things in life that no one will ever be able to forcefully take away from you. Your choices are your own. Even if someone can take your life, they cannot force you to make a choice that you believe is wrong

The actions below cannot be done at once, nor should they be. Each of them takes time to fully understand and apply towards your life. Learn about your own virtues and values, and how they correspond to your life and the world around you. Follow the steps below to improve yourself by building your character.

Steps

1

Understand what character and integrity are. The definitions of these words are often stretched or misrepresented. Learn what they truly mean:

• In this use, Character is the sum of qualities shown up in a person or group, moral or ethical strength, and the description of a person's attributes, traits and abilities. Character is who you are. It defines you and guides your actions, hopefully in a positive way.
• Integrity is steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code, being unimpaired, sound, whole and undivided; completeness.
• Integrity can be summed up simply as doing the right thing for the right reason even when no one is watching.

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   Choose a set of rules, morals, or principles that you believe will lead to a happy, satisfying, and righteous life, and a better world. You can subscribe to the ethics of a particular religion, or you can develop your own, based on your experiences.
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   Look at the choices you have made in your past, and observe how much you have or have not lived by those principles. Don't waste time feeling regretful or guilty. Remember that "...until a person can say deeply and honestly, I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday, that person cannot say, I choose otherwise." -Stephen R. Covey.
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   Decide what you must change in your behavior to align your life more closely to what you believe.
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   Be conscious every day of the decisions you make, however big or small, and how close they bring you to being the person you really want to become.
   • Maintaining hard earned good reputation and personal integrity is rewarding and beats starting over from a deficit; but, if you find yourself in a rut -- stop digging -- and climb out of the deepest "mud-hole" onto a firmer footing! It may take exercising your harder option to choose the steep and narrow, straight path, versus the broad meandering, but popular route that misses all the opportunities (problems) while those others prefer taking their ease and merely watching the climbers like you make it look easy from where they watch you taking and conquering the challenge by smarter work, not just harder!