How to motivate yourself to improve personality flaws
Are you a nag? Do you worry too much? Are you always poking your nose into other people's business? Do you focus too much on the negative? Are you judgmental? Are you quick to jump on the bandwagon? Most everyone has a personality flaw they wish they could get rid of. However, most everyone also makes excuses for why they have it, and why they can't change it. "It's just my personality" is a common cop out. Personality flaws are not embedded, we develop a personality, and we can change it, we just have to have the right motivation. So, how do you motivate yourself to improve personality flaws?
1. Recognize the flaw: Obviously the first step to changing, or improving a personality flaw is to recognize it as a flaw. All too often we can readily see flaws in others, but neglect to see our own flaws. So, in order to motivate yourself to improve your personality flaws, you have to truly know it is a flaw. It might be helpful to look at others with this same flaw, and see how it affects your relationship with them, how others are affected, and what results this characteristic has caused for them. Like stated earlier, it is easier to recognize problems in others, and thus it is also easier to see the consequences of these flaws. So, for example, if you have a neighbor who gossips a lot, and you want to change that habit, or personality flaw in yourself, look at how their gossiping makes you feel about them. Look at how others feel about them. Do you want others to feel that way about you?
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2. Want to change it: the next step in motivating yourself to improve personality flaws is to want to. Obviously you want to change your flaws, but this is more than a "it would be nice" it is a want that is like a fire inside of yourself. This goes hand in hand with step one. You may wish you were less of a gossip, but not bad enough to do anything about it. However, if you see how much so and so being a gossip makes people dislike him or her, you may "want" to change or improve that about yourself even more.
3. Get help: Most people can not change things on their own. So, you should get help. This does not mean see a therapist. A great way to motivate yourself to change or improve is to tell your friends you are trying to, and ask them to tactfully point out to you areas and times you could be doing better. You want to be careful though to select people whom you trust, and love as this can often lead to hurt feelings.
4. Remind ourselves: One important part of motivating yourself to improve personality flaws is to constantly remind yourself that is what you are doing. So, set goals, write them down, print them out, keep one in your day planner, one copy taped to your mirror, one copy on your car dash board, etc. Have copies wherever you spend the most time, that way you will always remember to work to improve yourself.
5. Reward yourself: Part of motivation is working towards a goal, so while not being a gossip is rewarding in and of itself, little rewards along the way will really help out as well. So, if you do not gossip for a week, go shopping and buy something nice. If you go a month, plan a little get away, etc. Give yourself extra incentive to change your personality flaws, or at least improve them, and you will.
6. Make it a habit: Once you have improved them, or changed them, you will not want to go through the process again, so make it a habit. Determine the best ways to keep yourself motivated to be stay with the new you instead of reverting back. Many of those ways are just reinforcing the above ideas.
