Dealing with Behavioural Flaws

Recently, I was shocked to find I could no longer solve a quadratic equation. I was actually very good at maths in school; back then, I would have said it was impossible to forget. But the fact is, I simply don’t remember how to do it.

Any knowledge without practice fades and eventually dies. You are lucky if you one day realise it’s gone; the worse scenario is never realising at all.

When it comes to self-improvement, practice is far more critical than in the natural sciences. At its core, any technique is about changing habits: removing the bad and fostering the good. From my perspective, the former is the hardest; a habit isn't just an action, it’s part of your self-expression, essentially, a part of your nature.

As I read "What Got You Here...", I identified that I possess 10 of the 20 behavioural flaws. Not too bad, actually, only two are part of my hard-to-change firmware, while I only commit the others once in a while.

From the day one, I started eliminating the infrequent ones (again the Pareto principle). They are easier to fix, and removing them buys me the time to address my major issues. And you know what? It works. I’ve noticed that conversations go smoother, agreements are reached faster, and I’m no longer exhausted after a full day of talking and negotiating.

My initial recommendation stands: this book is a must-read. The best part - the only person I have to fix is myself. I don’t need to spend hours convincing anyone else that black is black and white is white.