In previous posts, we discussed why labeling other people can be a huge mistake when we really want them to change. Actually, we usually make such a mistake not only to other people but also to ourselves. Oftentimes when we think about ourselves, we seem to care a lot more about our shortcomings. These descriptions of ourselves are sometimes referred to as personalities. However, if we allow our personality defines who we are, we are actually falling into the trap created by ourselves.
Why using personality to describe ourselves is a bad idea? Because personality is often viewed as stable, and extremely hard to change. When we think about our personality, more likely than not we would think about the part we dislike about ourselves. We would treat it as part of our personality, we are unlikely to think it is possible to change it. No matter how we wish we could improve our shortcomings, if we keep telling ourselves those shortcomings are part of our personality, all our effort in changing them will be futile, since deep down the heart, we don’t believe changing our personality is possible.
Moreover, the language of personality we often use may serve a good excuse to stay the way we are used to. When we face some challenging situations that we don’t feel confident about, our self-talk in the language of personality will quickly catch this anxious feeling and turn it into an excuse. Someone may always complain their shortcomings holds them back when an opportunity presents to them. However, complaining about our personality doesn’t help us change better. Instead, if we often use the negative part of our personality as an excuse, it will be strengthened even more, and we will clearly fall into a downward spiral created by ourselves.
We should never let our personalities define who we are if we ever want to become better people. The world presents so many challenges to us and we constantly need to adapt to it better. In order to do that, improving our shortcomings and have the courage to do something new is absolutely necessary. We should never let personality becomes an excuse. Personality merely represents the way we look at the world in the past, and we should not allow it to control our now and future!
(To be continued)
