Self-Control :: You Are What You Really Really Want To Be

Struggling with the self.

Interesting angle here focusing predominantly on self-control. The article cites Martin Seligman early on. Seligman is like, the granddaddy of Positive Psychology, and in a 2004 study entitled Character Strengths and Virtues, a survey of two million people showed that self-control was the personal skill that was least in evidence. And it is certainly important.

All the happiness strategies I come across involve doing things every day. Not impossible to achieve things, but things that require a little self-control – just a little, just to get you over the resistance. Actually, thinking about it, self-control is fundamental to any kind of successful life. Imagine all the things you wouldn’t do if you had better self-control. And therefore all the time you could spend doing the things you should be doing.

Anyway, this article highlights the mindset of the self-controlled. What do people with self-control do? Well, they forgive themselves, they focus on solutions, they squash negative talk, and so on. It’s an interesting article, which I may well finish later, and if I don’t, it’s because Forbes is a business magazine, and I personally find business just a little distasteful.

But yes, nice angle.

 

Illustration by NotKeith.

Filed under: BUSINESS Tagged: Forbes, Self-control, Seligman, Strategies, Travis Bradberry