Alpha Male Characteristics
1. Constructive Honesty
Honesty is the truth that can be scary. It's difficult to tell others how you really feel. It's frightening to admit your weaknesses and vulnerabilities because those weaknesses may be used against you. But alpha males have the courage to be honest with others and themselves.
When you think about alpha personalities, what do you think about? You may think of leadership, passion, and motivation. You think of strength and charisma. But before you can be confident and courageous, you have to be honest. You have to be honest with who you are, and you have to be honest with the people in your life.
Just take this situation: you notice your friend has given up on their goals; they're losing sight of their passions, and you may be the only one who can help them. To help your friend overcome this challenge, you have to take a risk. You have to have a difficult conversation with them. In that conversation, you may feel like the bad guy. After all, you're challenging their habits and pushing them toward change. Conversations like these are intimidating and emotionally taxing, but they're incredibly valuable. A single honest conversation can change the course of your friend's life.
| Alpha Trait | Description |
|---|---|
| Honesty | Being truthful to inspire and connect. |
| Reasoning | Careful and thoughtful decision-making. |
| Pride | Investing in personal care and confidence. |
2. Careful Reasoning
Do you make rash decisions? Are you impulsive or temperamental? If you are, you may not have an alpha personality. The term alpha male is commonly associated with angry men forcing their will on others, but there's nothing alpha about anger and impulsivity.
The truth is alphas like you are calm and careful decision-makers. You don't make harsh, radical judgments about the world around you. You don't let your emotions control you, and you make decisions that you and the people in your life can be proud of.
Every decision you make deserves a moment of thought and reflection. Every decision, big and small, can be intentional. But there's a big difference between decisive reasoning and overthinking. Anyone can overthink; anyone can cycle through negative patterns, reliving the same hypotheticals again and again. Overthinkers tend to be indecisive and frazzled, but alphas are just the opposite.
When you face a difficult choice, you pause, think, and then make a firm decision. Why is that? Because your emotions can immediately cloud your judgments. You get angry, sad, or excited, and those emotions will drive you to make impulsive choices. You rarely make impulsive choices because you give your feelings time to stabilize. You keep your composure, you wait until the dust finally settles, and then once you can see clearly, you make a conscious choice and stick to it.
3. Personal Pride
Few people associate self-care with alpha personalities. There's a myth that every alpha male is an effortless provider, a natural caretaker of themselves and of others, but it's not effortless at all. It takes a lot of hard work to look and feel like an alpha male. You need to invest in your personal care. You have to take pride in your appearance, one that will help you develop the confidence and charisma of an alpha personality.
Now, I'm not saying that every alpha is the most athletic or attractive guy in the room, but as an alpha, you have as much confidence as anyone because you've worked hard to improve yourself. You've taken control of your physicality; you present yourself to the world as someone who's proud and intentional. That personal pride is one of the most inspiring traits of an alpha personality.
But it doesn't happen automatically. It takes time and effort to look as good as you feel, just like it takes time to feel as good as you look. Most people aren't willing to put in the work, but if you're an alpha male, you take your personal pride very seriously.
4. Chasing Ambitions
Alpha males dedicate their lives to their goals. They chase their passions with a work ethic that inspires others. But the greatest asset of an alpha male is their courage. Many people are afraid of their own ambitions. They don't know what success looks like; they're afraid of failure. They think they're not prepared, intelligent, or talented enough to achieve their dreams.
These doubts create fear, and fear keeps you from accomplishing your goals. Alpha males work every day to overcome their fears. You know that success isn't easy, simple, or risk-free, so fear will always threaten your ambitions. It will always stand in your path like a wall you have to climb again and again. You could admit defeat. You could convince yourself that the wall is too high, but if you're an alpha male, you don't let fear stand in your way. You're just as scared as everyone else, but you overcome your hurdles anyway. The only way to get rid of fear is to face it.
5. The Influencer
Alpha males don't care what people think about them. Sure, they want to make good impressions. They're always conscious of social standards, and they want to surpass expectations, but those expectations never cloud their individual identity.
An alpha male shapes their self-hood from the inside out. You're not influenced by the opinions of others. Instead, you do the influencing. Other people respect and admire you because you've transformed yourself into someone worth respecting.
6. Uncomfortable Risks
Do you take risks? Do you throw yourself into uncomfortable situations? Alpha males are always looking for a challenge. They're not afraid to take risks. In fact, they want to take risks.
Why is that? Because alphas know how important new experiences can be. They widen your perspective, give you confidence, and infuse your world with a brand new spectrum of possibilities. If you hide inside your comfort zone, you may be safe and protected. Everything may feel easy and familiar, but you'll never understand what you're truly capable of. I'm willing to bet it's a lot more than you think.
If you're an alpha male, you push yourself to challenge yourself more than most. But you don't take those risks to appease or attract other people. You aren't interested in getting attention or satisfying expectations. As an alpha male, you take risks to change your relationship with yourself. You're a bold and adventurous person, and you wouldn't have it any other way.
7. Social Magnets
Do people enjoy spending time with you? Alpha males are social magnets. They attract all kinds of people because they motivate and inspire their social circles. People feel stronger and more passionate around you because you, as an alpha male, represent the type of person they want to be. They want to be as passionate as you are. They want to be as kind and honest as you are. You've worked hard to achieve things that very few people have, and those accomplishments have turned you into a social magnet.
8. Meaningful Silence
Alpha males mean what they say, and they say what they mean. They're intentional with their language, but they also know the power of silence. We've talked about the way alpha males express themselves. They're honest. They speak up. They do what they need to do.
Sometimes you're out of your depth. Sometimes you're standing in unknown territory. In moments like these, an alpha will close their mouths and listen. They accept that they don't know everything, and they're willing to learn from the wisdom of others.
Now, this may sound backwards to you. We imagine alpha males as stubborn, bull-headed characters who need to hear themselves talk. Actually, real alphas are not argumentative or narrow-minded. They don't talk just to hear the sound of their own voice. They talk when they need to talk, but they also listen when they need to listen.
9. Habitual Change
Alphas have a keen understanding of how they live their lives. They reflect on the habits and routines that govern their mental and physical states. If you're an alpha male, you ask yourself questions like, "Are my habits helping me? Are my routines making me more productive? What vices are slowing me down?"
You ask these questions because you want to live the best life that you can. You're observant of the positive habits that fuel you while actively addressing the bad habits that bring you down.
You don't have to have everything figured out. No one can live a life that's 100 percent positive or 100 percent productive. But as an alpha, you want to improve and grow. If you see something you don't like about yourself, you don't get angry. You don't complain. You make an active effort to change. You form new habits, and little by little, you start to see results.
10. Social Investments
As an alpha male, you're protective of the people around you. If you thought alpha males were selfish or conceited, then think again. Alpha males are some of the most generous and altruistic individuals in the world because they actively invest in the people they care about.
When someone needs them, alphas are there to lend them a helping hand. If someone is slipping, alphas will catch them. Alphas know that strength and happiness aren't things you achieve alone. So, they treasure their communities and encourage their loved ones to improve and succeed.
