Self Development: How to develop your character?
Overtime as humans we evolve and as that happens so does our character, its quite intriguing how a person can change and develop into something better than they were. It makes one ponder if that change is real or even possible.
So the question is can one develop their character?
Yes, character development is possible and we are all capable of doing it.
How can we do it is the bigger question.
Character is defined as the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual, it is the aggregate of traits that form the nature of a person. Our character is what makes us different from others, it is those qualities we possess as individuals that makes us stand out among other people. It can be deduced from the above that the character of a person is simply a symbol of them.
If our character makes up who we are then what is our personality? So here goes the answer, an individual’s personality is a way of thinking, feeling and behaving. Often times the two are interchanged,so it can be simply said that character is the moral and mental make up of an individual while personality is the qualities, attitude and behavior of a person.
Additionally our character has to do with our actions and thoughts, there are two types of character described: Moral character and the Intellectual character. Moral character has to do with our actions,our behaviors,what we do repeatedly. The intellectual character depicts our thoughts, it consists of our inner attitudes and dispositions towards things like truth, understanding e.t.c. This shows the link between the two as moral failure depicts a defective intellectual character, our thoughts guide actions.
For this purpose we can say that our habits and mindset have an impact on our character. Habits are defined as something you do on a regular basis, something you do without actively making a decision, its something done repeatedly. Also habits are categorized as good and bad, that is to say which ever one you have your character will be a product of it. Our brains do not have the ability to differentiate good and bad habits, we have to cautiously make an effort to train our brains in doing what is good and rejecting what is bad. It is not an easy process, as our habits don’t just disappear,we have to replace them with good ones.
Certainly as our habits affect our character so does our mindset. The way we think and perceive things in our environment plays a role as to who we become, focusing on the good aspect of life will lead to positive outcome on the other hand focusing on the bad side of things will only result in negativity.
An example of good character is the Messenger(saw), Allah (swt) has informed us in the Qur’an, that indeed we have in the prophet a great moral character. To define what a good character is, one should reflect on the manners and actions of our prophet, for he was the best of creation.
There are a lot of theories out there as to how an individual’s character is formed. As we were thought from the traditions of our beloved Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, He said, “No child is born but that he is upon natural instinct”, Natural instinct here refers to the natural state of purity,the inclination towards good. It can be understood from the above that the potential do to good or bad stems from the beginning of life. Our environments influence our life choices from an early age, a child brought up in home of good traits and values would grow up having the inclination to do good, the opposite happens for a child from a different background. Everyone gets tested while growing up on doing right and wrong, some are able to face these challenges and excel towards good, for others it’s not always the same.
On the contrary having values and good traits bring nothing but goodness, this can be seen in the teachings of our beloved Prophet,
The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said:
الْحَيَاءُ لَا يَأْتِي إِلَّا بِخَيْرٍ
Modesty does not bring anything but goodness.
It can be noted from the above tradition that good character or being modest brings anything but goodness, goodness in this context could mean anything that is good, be it happiness, love, beauty or honor, it opens doors beyond imagination. In conclusion having good traits and values if anything takes one to greater heights.
An individual’s character can take different forms throughout life as another meaning of character is an engraved mark, as it is derived from the Greek word “kharakter”, it also goes to mean scrape or scratch, putting these meanings together we can say that character is to engrave(an active art of determining what builds our character), scrape
(learning from the challenges we’ve faced and proving what we’ve learned by doing much better than before) and scratch(the act of working our way back when we fall down and gain strength of integrity of what we’ve experienced). Developing ones self is not an easy process, it takes time, self discipline, perseverance and faith in Allah(swt).
