Ask HN: How do you find and work on your flaws? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you find and work on your flaws?

10 pointscedws6 comments

Both in professional and personal relationships.

As I get older (turning 22 this year) I feel that it's harder to find out what I'm doing wrong or could do better. People are less frank because you're a grown human being and there's nothing for them to gain from it. I consider myself really open to criticism and want to hear what people think, but not everybody is like this, so there's also a fear of being reprimanded.

When you're six and forget your manners, your parents can quickly correct you. When you're a junior software engineer and break production, the senior can point out your mistake and help you to learn from it. But beyond this, there's only really close friends, family, and significant others that can help.

For most individuals, there will be an inflection point where their parents know them less and less as they get older and eventually a romantic partner becomes the person most familiar with them. Then there's a whole new person to learn from.

If you're not dating, what happens? Nobody really knows you, unless you're lucky to have close friends who you see often. So, there's nobody to observe you and help you grow.

Hope this explains my question sufficiently.

Journal daily. Each week, review the week’s journal entries and review the previous weekly entry. Set your targets for the coming week. At the end of each month, compare each of the four end of week journal entries and also review the previous month entry. Set your targets for the coming month. At the end of each quarter, review the last three monthly entries and also the previous quarter entry. Set your targets for the coming quarter. At the end of each year, re-read through everything and set your targets for the coming year.

See if you can identify patterns in your thinking and behaviour. Make sure you know what your focus and targets are and ask yourself if what you are doing is bringing you closer or further away from those goals. If it is the latter, continue asking yourself questions to find out what you need to do to course correct.

Also, read widely. Something like Tim Ferris’s Tribe of Mentors will expose you to a wide variety of different high performing individuals and their thought processes and habits. Reading through you can see if anything resonates with you and you can decide if you want to incorporate it into your own life. If you do find someone who you resonate with, find out who their influences are and what books and podcasts they recommend.

Finally, try hard, challenging things at the edge of your ability. If you fail, you’ll have found something out about yourself and what you might need to work on. If you succeed, you’ll still have learned some valuable information and you also get the satisfaction of completing a difficult task.

Introspection. Someone mentioned journaling and looking for patterns. I'm also fond of what I call "talk-aloud walks" where I talk to myself out loud as I walk (often recording it in case I want to listen back later). It's a different dynamic compared to written reflection. I think it's more fun.

Counseling. Our deepest flaws come from early childhood experiences so it can be extremely valuable to build a relationship with a therapist to dig into those.

Mindfulness meditation. For me it helps to see myself and the world more clearly. Mindfulness emphasizes nonjudgment which helps provide a more objective lens.

Coaching. A good coach can help you recognize patterns in your thinking/behavior and help you cultivate a growth mindset. Coaches focus on helping you create a better future (as opposed counseling, which is more focused on dealing with past trauma). Look for coaches who are credentialed through the International Coaching Federation. I should note that I am a coach so I'm biased, but I also have worked with several coaches and still do to this day.

Only real, actionable, effective answer: therapy.

And I'd like to suggest Positive Psychology specifically. You might find you have fewer flaws than you had initially thought.

[https://positivepsychology.com/what-is-positive-psychology-d...]

Thanks for this.

Try to honestly criticize yourself (don't be mean!) and after hearing the "what" (your criticism; something that you would like to improve), you can more clearly consider the "why" and "how".

I'll share a general way to do this, with some important caveats.

First: Find a model with some depth to it, that seems to explain your style/thinking/personality/past pretty well.

Then find a model within that model which provides reliable, accurate, and constructive developmental feedback, ideally in an algorithmic / logical style. IOW, the feedback should be nothing personal; it should apply to people who are similar to you in this way or that. The application should be clear, and fairly removed from guesswork.

Warning: I did this within the field of personality type studies and it was one of the most punishing things I could have ever done to myself. Before I knew it I was traveling to conferences and rubbing shoulders with curious therapists, social workers, and research psychologists. Then some of those people became my mentors. This can go very deep. (And it can get fascinating)

So, before you start down such a path, here is a simple exercise to consider:

- List five nice things people have said about you, regarding your strengths. OR list five different accomplishments you're proud of and what they say about you.

- Gaze at the list and appreciate what you've become

- STOP here and do not read further until you've done that

- Foreach item in the list:

- Write down its polar opposite. To test if it's opposite enough: People who are like this IRL should drive you _nuts_.

- Consider varioius ways in which this reaction is an indicator of personal intolerance, weakness, lack of skill, and massive room for growth.

- Spend the next N years identifying positive role-model examples of each of those opposite areas, and learning their tools.

- Learn how to integrate those new tools with the gifts your past-self brought forward, to construct a better you. To confirm that this really works: When "X vs. Y" -- gift vs. weakness-- dichotomies from your past arise, you should now feel capable of moving beyond them and they should not trigger you so much anymore.

Warning: Attempting this kind of change can lead to serious psychological damage. DO NOT do this without consulting a professional, if you are suffering from mental or psychiatric illness.

Personally I learned to identify my "life's not worth living" threshold within 5-10 minutes of it getting really dire. This was worth knowing in maybe 1 or 2 situations where I got the very most out of my self-growth efforts before bailing. You MUST be ready to push back on your developing self and protect yourself with nurturing or inner-chlid models, etc.

The upside of this is that, if you're open to it, you will isolate huge areas of leverage where you have lots of skill just under the surface. You will start to see the emergence of high-leverage themes in your life when this happens. Then, even more importantly, you will remove the same old _barriers_ to the constructive application of those leverage points.

You should feel much more powerful and much more capable of solving a variety of problems in life, from the logical-mathematical, to the groceries-dishes-laundry, to the human-relational-conceptual. You will know without a doubt that you have developed yourself significantly and understand key differences between current and past self. You will also likely have significant, lasting regrets about your past which you wish you could return to and remediate.

Just an example and some thoughts--I hear what you are saying & wish the best of luck to you.

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