Benjamin Franklin's 274-Year-Old Plan for Character Change

You may know him as a founding father of the United States, but he was also possibly one of the pioneers of the self-help movement, years before his time.

In 1726, upon return to Philadelphia from London, England, Franklin developed a "plan" for regulating his future conduct.

His plan consisted of 13 virtues, one of which he focused on for the week and evaluated himself as to his performance on a daily basis. 

Since he spent one week on each of the virtues, he was able to concentrate on each virtue four times per year, and utilized a small chart (see link below) to track his progress.

The 13 virtues and a short description of each: 
1) Temperance: Eat not to dullness and drink not to elevation.

2) Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling conversation.

3) Order: Let all your things have their places. Let each part of your business have its time.

4) Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.

5) Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e. Waste nothing.

6) Industry: Lose no time. Be always employed in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary actions.

7) Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit. Think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

8) Justice: Wrong none, by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

9) Moderation: Avoid extremes. Forebear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

10) Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanness in body, clothes or habitation.

11) Chastity: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring; Never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.

12) Tranquility: Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

13) Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.


How to Follow Franklin's Guide

Use the guide below to track how well you do in adhering to Franklin's virtues or striving to improve your character. Alternately, create your own set of virtues or character traits you want to improve.

Each column of the chart below stands for a day of the week. At the end of the day, evaluate your progress by putting a dot, an "x" or the number of times you failed to adhere to each virture.

Franklin's Book of 13 Charts

The Best Of The Best: A Resource That Could Save Your Life

Thank God that most people haven’t gone through what I have to get on with life.

What I mean by that is this: over time, I slowly came to realize that the biggest roadblock to success in my life is me. That’s the painful truth.

Have you ever heard the saying, “I’ve seen the enemy and he is me?”

I’ve found that I’ve got a lot of past baggage, or perceptions and beliefs that hold me back.

When you come to grasp this, you have a choice to make: should I stay or should I go?

In other words, do I choose to remain where I’m at, or do I choose to face my beliefs and get to work, so I can move on with my life?

For those of you who are at that place where they want to “get unstuck,” and have discovered that few, if any things have worked for you, I’ve got a resource that has literally been a lifesaver. And no, I don’t benefit in any way by mentioning it to you.

Here it is:

“The New Psycho Cybernetics: a mind technology for living your life without limits”

Keep an open mind, as many of you may not be too comfortable with self-help resources out there, even if it may turn your life around. I encourage you to try it. If you’re not comfortable buying the CD set, I believe Amazon.com has the book for a fraction of the retail cover price.
I highly recommend it.

I don’t say this lightly, as I’ve got a ton of self-help resources, and would say that most similar items aren’t on par or nearly as helpful as this CD set & guidebook has been for me. Be prepared for some deep, practical, hands on change coming your way if you choose to go this route.

You can get yours at nightingale.com, although you could probably find it cheaper on Amazon.com.

Dreams on Tap?

I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that things changed drastically post op.

It was a drag attempting to recover. Finding myself out of breath just going out to the car. Or what about not feeling physically or mentally at the top of my game any longer? Talk about struggling. Yeah, it shook me up. That's the understatement of the year.

But, I had plenty of time to think about life and what I REALLY WANTED TO DO and why I hadn't actually just done it. Then I could start moving in that direction.

Anybody else out there relate? Had a similar experience? Let me know--post it here. And perhaps we can encourage each other...

Or tell us about your dreams and what you've always wanted to do but for whatever reason just haven't started down that road yet--maybe we could help each other. Who knows?

Either way, as 2006 slips into the past and another year takes it's place, may you find the time to consider if you're "doing what you love while being who you are" as you look forward to 2007. (More on that later)

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!

Attitude Matters--How's Yours?

This is your second helping from my toolbox of favorite quotes.

We started with "Destiny," to kinda give you the big picture, now I'll give you a few from "Attitude." My experience has been that you can have the world's greatest goals and "shoot-for-the-moon" aspirations, but if your attitude STINKS, then it's not likely you'll get where you want to go.

The foundation of your attitude is your BELIEFS, which is something everyone must look at along the road to success, if they don't want to lose everything (or everyone) along the way. I'll spend some time covering this later.

Attitude:

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind."--William James

"Your living is determined not so much by what life brings you as by the attitude you bring to life."--John Homer Miller

"You are searching for the magic key that will unlock the door to the source of power; and yet you have the key in your own hands, and you may make use of it the moment you learn to control your thoughts."--Napoleon Hill

"For as he thinks in his heart, so is he."--Proverbs 23:7 (Amplified version)