SELF-CONTROL-
Virtues, Happiness, and Stoicism.
How Stoicism can help you be happy and lead a good life.
Reviewed by Michelle Quirk

KEY POINTS-
Virtues are character qualities that enable you to act in ways that fulfill your potential.
Recent research confirms that cultivating virtues is associated with personal happiness as well as a good ethical life.
Stoicism adds essential philosophical scaffolding to psychological ideas about how to cultivate the virtues.
It’s true that the word “virtue,” with connotations of self-sacrifice and Victorian morality, can be rather off-putting. Yet, for many ancient Greeks and Romans—Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics amongst them—cultivating the virtues was the secret to living both a happy life and an ethical life. Recent research supports this notion. One of the many benefits of Stoicism is that it can help you lead a virtuous and, thereby, happy and purposeful life.

What Are the Virtues?
Aretḗ, the Greek word for virtue, means “excellence.” The virtues are character qualities displayed by excellent human beings, qualities that will help you fulfill your potential to become “the best version of you.”

The Greek philosopher Plato identified four main or “cardinal” virtues, these being wisdom, courage, self-control, and justice. There are many other virtues, all of which can best be seen as part of a family of related qualities headed by one of the cardinal virtues. For example,

Knowledge, curiosity, creativity, insight, judgment, and prudence are part of wisdom.
Persistence, bravery, honesty, integrity, strength, and determination are elements of courage.
Moderation, self-discipline, self-regulation, temperance, patience, and humility are components of self-control.
Fairness, kindness, teamwork, friendship, compassion, and love constitute justice. It should be noted that justice is used very broadly to encompass virtues relating to how we treat people well, not only fairness.
The science of well-being—otherwise known as positive psychology—has resulted in considerable empirical research into what makes a life go well. A large-scale literature review of philosophical and historical ideas about positive human qualities confirmed Plato’s four cardinal virtues as being of paramount importance (Peterson & Seligman, 2004).

Why Virtues Matter
A moment’s reflection on each of the cardinal virtues confirms their value.

Courage allows you to handle fear well. Without courage, anxiety or discomfort may prevent you from doing what, to paraphrase John Wayne, you gotta do.
Self-control enables you to temper your desires. Otherwise, your appetites may cause you to make a mess of your relationships or physical health.
Justice ensures you treat others well, with kindness and fairness. It creates and maintains harmony in relationships and communities.
Wisdom helps us to understand the world and what matters most, and to exercise good judgment about what to do in specific situations.

Wouldn’t you want your child, or anyone else you cared about, to possess all of these qualities?

Contemporary Research on the Benefits of the Virtues
Our research during a recent Stoic Week found a very strong association between a single statement “I cultivate the virtues of wisdom, courage, self-control and justice” and well-being (LeBon, 2022). High correlations were demonstrated between cultivating the cardinal virtues and flourishing (.55), purpose and meaning (.45), engagement in daily activities (.44), and positive emotions (.41).

Numerous studies have found links between exercising specific virtues and well-being. For example, Steger, Kashdan, and Oishi (2008) found that activities in line with virtue such as being grateful, volunteering, and persevering in a task were associated with higher well-being.

In a systematic review of the research on virtue and well-being, Diener and Kesebir (2013) concluded that there is “a clear association between happiness and virtue, which seems particularly strong when it comes to self-transcendent virtues such as hope, zest, gratitude, love, and curiosity.” They argue that virtue and happiness form a “virtuous cycle,” with causation operating in both directions. For example, if you are loving to others, you will most likely feel happier as a result. Other people may well reciprocate, in which case your sense of well-being will increase further and your motivation to be loving will be reinforced.

Which Virtues Should You Develop?
Contemporary psychology has shed much light on the value of the virtues and how to develop them. The VIA (Values in Action) classification, which resulted from Peterson and Seligman’s initiative, provides a framework for the measurement of virtue, and what they term 24 related “character strengths.” Two top tips from positive psychology are to

Focus on your strengths, rather than your weaknesses, and
Use your top or “signature” strengths more (Seligman, 2002).
Whilst such interventions have been found to be beneficial, there are possible pitfalls, including the overuse and misuse of strengths. Modern advice needs to be tempered with ancient wisdom. Suppose that your doctor’s top strength is optimism. Would it be a good idea if, when you asked her to inspect your potentially sinister-looking lump, she used her optimism “strength” to dismiss your justifiable concerns by saying, “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that!” This would be an example of the overuse of a strength. Or, consider a burglar whose top strength is bravery. Would you want him to use that “strength” to pluck up the courage to break into your house in broad daylight? This would be the misuse of a strength.

The Stoics proposed two key ideas that explain why an over-simple application of positive psychology interventions can backfire:

Wisdom is the foundation of the virtues. We need practical wisdom (phronesis) to distinguish situations where caution rather than optimism is required, such as the case of the suspicious-looking lump. We also require moral wisdom (sophia) to understand that burgling houses is not a path to the good life.
The virtues are strongly interconnected. If you don’t have one of the cardinal virtues, it’s going to stop you from possessing the others. For example, true courage (as opposed to bravado) requires all the other virtues. Suppose you are considering quitting your less-than-fulfilling job. You might imagine this to be a courageous move. However, the Stoics would urge you to consider whether it is wise (How will you pay the bills?), just (How does it impact others?), and self-controlled (so not an impulsive reaction after a bad day in the office).
It follows that we should try to develop all the cardinal virtues,

How to Be Virtuous
In 365 Ways to Be More Stoic (LeBon, 2022) a chapter is included on how to develop each of the cardinal virtues, drawing on both contemporary research and ancient Stoic advice.

Here, I will close with three pieces of advice that can be applied generally to all of the virtues:
1. Emulate a role model.
Who would be your role model for each of the cardinal virtues? Maybe Nelson Mandela for justice and Greta Thunberg for courage? Perhaps Dumbledore might be your role model for wisdom and a friend of yours who gave up alcohol an example of how to develop self-control?

2. Use the lens of the virtues.
When anything happens to you, always remember to turn to yourself and ask what power you have to deal with it. —Epictetus, Handbook, 10

Today, when faced with a choice, ask yourself which virtue you need. If you are at the supermarket waiting in a queue, you might require patience (part of self-control). If you need to give negative feedback to a colleague, you might need both tact (part of wisdom) and courage. A virtues lens will help you frame your dilemmas in terms of the very qualities you need to handle them well, and also give you practice at developing each virtue.

3. Turn the virtues into habits with regular tiny steps.
Every habit and every faculty is confirmed and strengthened by the corresponding acts…if you do not wish to acquire the habit, abstain from doing it, and acquire the habit of doing something else instead. —Epictetus, Discourses, 2:18

Will Durant (1926), channeling Aristotle, makes a similar point:
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

Recent research suggests that habits can best be formed by dividing them into tiny, easily performed steps (e.g., Fogg, 2019). You might begin today, by deciding on one cardinal virtue to work toward. You might extend the well-known idea of performing “random acts of kindness” to other virtues, and perform five small acts of courage, self-control, or wisdom. You might even count reading this post as one such step!

STRESS-
Why Is the Way You Approach Your Day So Important?
How you choose to "meet" the world can impact your health, joy, and success.
Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

KEY POINTS-
It's important to experience your life as being sourced from your own choices.
The mindset by which you start your day determines how well you manage your stress.
Your attachment to lessons of childhood is counteracted by your ability to access the neuroplasticity of your brain.
How much of your day is engaged in things you’d rather not be doing? Or worse, worry or shrink from doing and procrastinate doing? For many, this doesn’t appear to be a choice. It’s just the way you are and the way you think, and perhaps the way you see the world.

Your approach to life is something learned a long time ago, during your childhood. It was learned as part of your adaptation to that environment and was a way of surviving. Those early survival lessons built out the neural networks of your brain. That was the scaffolding from which all subsequent learning has been hung. And even though that environment that you adapted to doesn’t translate very well to the world of today, you probably believe you are stuck with it.

To the extent that your childhood environment was dangerous or filled with judgments and criticism from primary caregivers (even if it wasn’t intentional or directed toward you), is the extent that you reacted, by trying to shrink from the place where you meet that difficult outside world—what is referred to as the “contact boundary.” If the environment presents any negativity or emotional pain, the natural tendency is to shy away from it. Unfortunately, as this approach to life gets reinforced and conditioned and built out in your brain circuitry, it has a number of consequences deriving from this bias and automatic reaction.

I find that most life approaches boil down to two choices—constricting and shying away from contact, as I just described, or embracing and moving into contact. We can refer to these different approaches as your “mindset.” Let’s follow these two approaches and how they shape your day’s experience.

How do you start your day?
You awaken and your mind goes to what can go wrong, what problem might arise, or how you might be judged in any of your encounters that day. This mindset will activate your stress response, releasing cortisol and adrenaline while causing muscle bracing; and ultimately greater inflammation. All this before breakfast. Your “mind/body” will want to either stay in bed, or look to distractions, or actions that are familiar. It will make it more difficult to engage in new successful behaviors, which are those that help you move into new territory in your life.

The keys to embracing your day that enhance your resilience
The other way of starting your day that can lead to better health and success is to embrace your day and your life. While there is a strong pull to old habits and to follow in existing footsteps, the other powerful force we can access is neuroplasticity, the ability of our brain and our neural circuitry to adapt and learn. While this path might be more uncomfortable in the short term, it will result in greater comfort and joy in the long term.

Here is a step-by-step process for greater health and success through the engagement of your brain’s neuroplasticity:

Make the decision that you want to determine how your day unfolds, how you feel during your day, and the direction you want your life to take. Making a decision—making this decision—begins to pull you out of the stickiness of being a victim in your life.
Recognize that if you are going to take any action, you have a choice of attitude by which you engage in that behavior. And you can choose the attitude that will better support your success. For example, if I have a business meeting, the attitude that will work better is one in which I value myself and what I have to offer. Choosing to focus on the positive outcome can help you manage your stress response and be more focused. If you worry about being judged, it will create tension and the tendency to shrink from the contact boundary. You will thus project different energy that will be picked up by the other person.

Make a decision to embrace the positive approach through the following self-statement: “I know I need to take this action—or meet this person, or write this proposal, etc.—I accept it. (Rather than resist.) I might as well choose the attitude that will yield the best result. So, even though it’s a bit scary, and uncomfortable I will embrace this and experience it as an opportunity for growth.”

No matter the outcome, appreciate yourself for taking this positive approach and already consider it a success, and find a positive way to frame the results of your actions.
If the result is not what you were trying to achieve, find a way to use the result as important information and a learning experience that’s part of the path to getting better at what you do. This puts a positive frame on the experience.
How you remember and take in your experiences is very important. Many people who get a positive result will still focus on how stressful or worrisome an experience was. The next time, they will be just as frightened because they remember the stress, not the success. Identify a positive framework to hold a memory of your experience.