Benjamin Franklin's Method of Self-Improvement

00:12

Welcome to Live Well & Flourish, where I help you understand what it means to live a flourishing life. I'm your host, Craig Van Slyke. If you're ready to think beyond material and external success, if you're ready to take control of who you are and the life you live, if you're ready to flourish, this is the podcast for you. 

00:37 

Happy New Year! Hopefully, 2022 will see a return to some sense of normal, although that’s what many of us said about 2021. So I guess time will tell. While world events are largely beyond our control, we can control whether 2022 moves us towards or away from living an excellent life and from flourishing.

00:58 

Living according to virtue is an important part of living a flourishing life. But doing so falls solidly into the “easier said than done” category. So that brings up a question, how can we live according to virtue? This is a complex question, but let’s see if we can’t simplify it a bit. To live according to virtue, first you have to decide what virtues you want to embody, then you have to live according to them. Simple, right?

01:27 

Yeah, that's pretty simple, but it's not particularly useful. So let me see if I can improve on this a little. So deciding what virtues you want to live is, in many respects, a lifelong task. So, let’s put that aside for a moment and turn to the second part, living according to the virtues. Benjamin Franklin. Yes, that Ben Franklin, came up with an ingenious and effective way to become virtuous, or to live according to virtue.

01:54 

I came upon Franklin’s method of self-improvement when I co-taught a class on self-leadership. Franklin developed a systematic way of building a habit of living according to a set of virtues. He called his system a “bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection.”

02:09 

Moral perfection. That is pretty bold but Ben was just that kind of guy. Through some pretty intensive study, he came up with a list of thirteen virtues that he wanted to follow. Those virtues are temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility. Don’t worry, if you didn’t catch all of these, they, and their definitions, are in the show notes.

02:33 

Franklin called these the moral virtues. His goal was to gain what he called habitude of these virtues. In other words, he wanted to make practicing them a habit. He decided to make just ONE of these virtues the object of conscious attention each week. In other words, he would make an effort to live up to one of these virtues every week. The next week, he would focus on a different virtue and so on until he focused on each virtue. Then, he repeated the cycle. So, in a year’s time, he had given strict attention to each of the virtues four times.

03:04 

So 4x13 = 52, as in 52 weeks of the year. Clever of old Ben. But Ben being Ben made his process even more systematic. He created a booklet, with a page for each virtue. On each page he created a grid, with the virtues listed in the rows, and the days of the week in the columns. He would make a mark each time he violated a virtue. His goal was to make sure that he did not violate his “virtue of the week,” but he would still mark each time he violated any of the virtues.

03:32 

If you're interested to see what his page looked like, or one of his pages looked like. Look in the show notes, I've got an image of one of the pages from his autobiography. One reason this method is so effective is that it blends two important practices -- self-awareness and reflection. There’s a great quote from Ben Franklin’s Autobiography: “I entered upon the execution of this plan for self-examination, and continued it with intermissions for some time. I was surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined; … .” My guess is that once we start tracking them, we would be similarly surprised, at least most of us would be. But Ben does cut himself some slack with the rest of the second sentence in the quote: “... but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish.” So, he also took note of the progress he made.

04:20 

Alright, so let's break this down a little bit, there are a couple of really important points here. So first, to improve, you need to be self-aware, you need to be mindful of your thoughts and behaviors. Second, and this is critical, you also need to accept that you’re not perfect. I don't know if you realize this or not, but that’s just the way humans are, imperfect. So, don’t focus on where you were, focus on where you are and where you’re going. Celebrate your improvements and your progress. Put differently, it’s not where you start that matters, it’s where you finish. It is within your power to be the kind of person you want to be, to exhibit the virtues you want to exhibit.

04:57 

To quote the Stoic philosopher Epictetus, “the good of man, and likewise his ill, lies in how he exercises his choice.” Sorry for the gendered language there, but he has a point. Who we are lies in our choices. Every day we’re faced with myriad choices that can move us towards or away from being who we want to be. Remember, you have agency, you get to make choices. So, exercise your agency to be an excellent person.

05:26 

I also like how Franklin built reflection into his system. Every day he'd think back on his slips, the times he did not live according to virtue, and, I imagine, ponder what led to the slips. He also thought about how he could act differently in the future. Reflection is how we make sense of the world, and Ben wanted to understand the circumstances that led to him acting contrary to virtue. Remember this, reflection, like self-awareness, is critical to living an excellent life. 

05:53 

Another thing I like so much about Ben Franklin’s method of self improvement is that it follows Aristotle’s path of instruction - practice - habit - being. In Franklin’s case, the instruction bit is especially interesting. He was largely self-educated; his formal education ended when he was ten years old. This was more formal education than most people got at the time, but it was hardly extensive. It’s important to note that Franklin didn’t let this lack of formal schooling keep him from pursuing excellence. He was a voracious reader at a time when books were expensive and hard to come by. (A little trivia, Ben came up with the idea of a subscription library, and hired the first American librarian.) The message here again is one of control. Even if you lack formal education in how to live an excellent life, books are cheap and plentiful now, and we have podcasts like this one that can help guide you. So it is within your power to educate yourself on what it means to be excellent.

06:45 

Franklin’s method is clearly focused on practice leading to habit. Each week he would consciously practice one virtue with the goal of building a habit of acting according to that virtue. This is pretty clever. He didn’t split his attention trying to pay attention to 13 virtues at the same time. He maintained a sharp focus on just one. Now, he did try to think back and remember and note when he violated the other virtues, but his focus was on one at a time. It’s almost impossible to pay close attention to 13 things at the same time, so Ben eliminated this problem by just working on one at a time. Pretty straightforward. As I said, he didn’t completely ignore the rest; remember that he would think back through his day and mark “violations” or slips of the other virtues, but he just worked on one at a time. So, his practice consisted of working on only one virtue at any given time. Through this practice, he hoped to gain what he called habitude, to make that virtue a habit. If you do that long enough, it actually becomes part of who you are. That's the being part of Aristotle's method.

07:48 

Alright, let’s move from the 1700s to the modern era for a bit. This idea of habit is really important. Social scientists of various sorts are paying a lot of attention to the role of automatic cognitive processing and habit in decision making. I don’t want to get into a lot of the details here, but the basic idea is that many of our decisions are made without deliberative thought, they’re made more or less automatically or out of habit. So building a habit of acting according to virtue means that you don’t have to make the decision to act correctly as a matter of conscious evaluation, you just do it. When you think about the dozens of behavioral choices we make each day, building a habit of virtue makes acting according to virtue just that much easier.

08:30 

I want to take a step back and emphasize something that is important, but maybe not obvious with Franklin’s method. He was taking control, control of how he acted, and control of who he was. He did this, at least in part, but controlling how he reacted to events around him. Some things are beyond our control, but how we react is always under our control whether you realize it or not. One of my favorite sayings is “You can’t control the cards you’re dealt, but you can control how you play them.” What Ben’s method is trying to achieve is to become more aware of the choices we make, then build a habit of making right choices. I’ll say it again; you get to decide who you are. That IS in your control. What Ben offers is a systematic way to move towards being the sort of person you want to be.

09:18 

The power of Franklin’s method is in its simplicity. It’s really not hard to implement. You don’t need to buy a fancy planner, you don’t need to download an app, you just need a cheap notebook, a pen or pencil, and the will to make yourself a better person. I encourage you to give Ben’s system a try as I will. So let’s move on to the three things you can do this week to help you flourish.

09:41 

The first, and most important task is to decide which virtues you want to pursue. Decide on just four virtues you want to pursue. Why four? I'll get to that in a minute. You can choose from Ben’s list, but I suggest you reflect on the virtues that are the most important in making you who you want to be. Don’t limit yourself to Franklin’s list. In fact, I wouldn’t get bogged down in some strict definition of “virtue.” Just think about who you want to be. You might want to choose two virtues that are the most important to being who you are, even if they’re already part of your being, and two that you need to work on. Think of two of these as maintenance virtues -- virtues that are important, so you don’t want to lose sight of them, and two growth virtues -- virtues that will help you improve as a person. Here’s my list: benevolence, industry, patience, and humility. I've got to admit that humility bit is NOT going to be easy! Look in the show notes for a full list of thirteen virtues I’m going to pursue in 2022.

10:40 

Next, prepare your chart. The Show notes has links to a full sheet chart 8.5x11 and a handy 3x5 card version, but you don’t need to get fancy here, you can just hand-write the chart, that'll work just fine. On the rows, put your virtues, and on the columns, put the days of the week. Simple. You can make your chart in any form that’s convenient for you. I find the 3x5 card version handy cause it’s really easy to carry in a shirt pocket or a jacket pocket or whatever, in a purse, whatever you happen to have.

11:11  

Third, try Ben’s method for one week. See how it goes. Even if you decide it’s not for you, you’ll still benefit just from reflecting on virtues and from the attention you paid to being who you want to be. If you think the method is helpful, follow it for a full month. Then, add four virtues (that's eight total) for the next month and keep going. Then twelve virtues for the next month or you can add that 13th one if you'd like and you can just keep going for the entire year. I’ll include templates for thirteen virtues in the show notes. Believe it or not, you can fit 13 on a 3x5 card! If you do this, even for a month, I assure you, you’ll be closer to being the person you want to be. Remember, you are in control of you.

11:55 

Even if you don’t want to put Ben Franklin’s method into practice, I urge you to still apply the underlying concepts -- thinking about the virtues you want as part of your being, consciously acting in a way that aligns with those virtues, being aware of when you act contrary to those virtues, and reflecting on your behaviors. Really, you don’t need to have a tracking chart to move towards who you want to be, but you do need to take control and be intentional about how you act. 

12:19 

My New Year’s wish is for you to take control of being the person you want to be and of living the life you want to live. Living well is a never ending journey, but as Steve Jobs said (I think it was Steve Jobs), the journey is the reward. Be well my friends.

12:34 

I produce Live Well & Flourish because of my dedication to helping others live excellent lives. I don't accept sponsorships and I don't want your money. The only thing I want is to help you and others flourish. If you received value from this episode please share it with someone that might also benefit from listening. Until next time.