Coaches help clients set goals (and hopefully reach them).  And clients have all sorts of great goals, from improving a relationship to raising their performance at work to achieving a big milestone such as writing a book.  But there is perhaps no bigger goal than this: becoming a more virtuous person.

When a client truly desires to become a better person, she is focusing on the most pivotal aspect of life.  You see, when a client changes her character, she is transforming the core aspect of who she is, which in turn changes her attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, relationships and outcomes.  Since this is such a pivotal client goal, I’d like to use this blog post to explore virtue so we can better support clients who long for this worthy goal.

What is virtue?

Simply put, a virtue is a good character trait.  You might think of virtue as a habit of character – an automatic way of showing up that promotes good for you and those around you for the long term.  One way to think of these virtues is to consider them rules for the game of life.  If everyone plays according to this set of rules, life is positive and generative – the game gets better and better for everyone the longer the game is played.

Not all habits of character are good.  Virtue is the opposite of vice, which is the term to describe the habits of character that promote chaos and destruction. If everyone plays the game of life according to vices, the game degenerates and gets worse and worse for everyone playing.

When you put virtues and vices together, you get character.  Character is the sum total of what kind of person you are: your particular mix of virtues and vices that combine to form who you are, how you act, and what you give/receive in life.  As NT Wright puts it, as a Christian, once you become a saved member of God’s eternal family, your main focus should be on becoming the kind of person who can inhabit God’s kingdom well.  He writes, “In the last analysis, what matters after you believe is neither rules nor spontaneous self-discovery, but character.” (7)

Since character matters so much, I cannot imagine a more substantial, important, and challenging goal for a person than to develop good, godly character, which is to say to become a more virtuous person.

Identifying virtues

If we’re going to help our clients become a better kind of person, we need to help them establish a clear sense of what a good person actually looks like.  In a culture where each person is more or less free to determine for himself what good is, identifying true goodness can be reach challenge.  To help with this, we can turn to history and tradition.

For nearly two thousand years, Christians have had a working list of virtues.  These are often called the 7 Heavenly Virtues.  The full list of seven is comprised of two sub lists: the 4 Cardinal Virtues and the 3 Theological Virtues.

The 4 Cardinal Virtues are called “cardinal” from the Latin word cardo, for hinge.  The ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle saw these as the four virtues on which a good life hinges.  While many more virtues could be identified, these are four that matter most.

As Christians, we should note that these are moral virtues that can be acquired by practice and habit.  They are open to anyone, Christian or not.

So here’s the list of cardinal virtues:

1. Prudence, also described as wisdom, is the ability to judge between actions with regard to appropriate actions at a given time. The more prudent you are, the better you are at identifying the right and best thing to do in any given situation.  Prudent people are not given to whims of emotion or expediency, but are willing to forego immediate pressures in favor of long-term goodness.
2. Justice is that virtue which regulates a person in her dealings with others. Connected to justice are the virtues of fairness and righteousness. A just person does what is fair and right for all who are concerned.  As you can imagine, it takes a lot of prudence to exercise true justice.
3. Fortitude equates with brave endurance, courage, forbearance, strength, and the ability to confront fear, uncertainty, and intimidation. In the face of difficulty and adversity (be they from external or internal sources), a person of fortitude presses forward. It’s important to note that fortitude is not just about doing the hard, challenging thing, but about doing the right thing even when it’s hard.
4. Temperance is that moral virtue that moderates the desires and pleasures of the sensuous appetite; it is also known as restraint, the practice of self-control, abstention, discretion, and moderation. Temperance allows us to engage in life’s pleasures without becoming a slave to them.

In addition to the cardinal virtues of the Greek philosophers, Christian theologians added three Theological Virtues.  If the cardinal virtues are concerned with how we relate to other people, the theological virtues are those character traits concerned with how we relate to God.  While the cardinal virtues are can be acquired by practice and habit, these virtues are given to us by God’s grace.

5. Faith is the virtue by which we believe God’s promises and revealed truth, even when there is little or no corresponding evidence. A person of faith sees the world for what it is and responds not with fear or cynicism, but by holding firm to God as the ultimate reality in every situation.
6. Hope is the confident trust in God’s goodness for eventual victory and life everlasting. Hope is more than optimism – it is optimism based on the goodness of God and the deep expectation that God will, in the end, make all things right.  Hope shines the light of God’s eternal victory into today’s shadowy places.  A person of hope lives out this deep expectation in a thousand small ways each and every day.
7. Love, also described as charity, is the will to cherish God for his own sake above all things, to cherish other people for the sake of God, and to do good deeds out of love for God alone. A person of love sees others as God sees them and treats them as they believe God would.  Christian love is not syrupy, greeting card affection, but a willingness to suffer and even die for others because of our love for God.

Coaching virtue

Like any meaningful goal, character development is not easy.  But big, challenging, seemingly impossible goals get easier when you break them down.  Understanding the seven heavenly virtues gives us handles for character development.  Aiming for virtue hits the target of good character (and a good life).

When you’re coaching for character development, ask your clients questions such as these:

• In order to live a good life, what kind of person do you need to be?
• What kind of person are you now?
• Of the seven heavenly virtues, which ones are most developed in your life?
• What evidence is there in your own life for each of the virtues?
• What current situation calls for the application of one or more of these virtues?
• If you were a bit more ______ (one of the seven virtues), what would that look like?