How Your Character Defects Are The Key To Better Habits

In this post I will teach you how to use your character defects to establish better habits.

This is a powerful process which can be applied in your daily life to improve relationships, feel less guilt, and increase your quality of life.

Why is it important to understand your character defects?

What are character defects?

Character defects are habits or behaviors that negatively impact your life. Here are a few common ones:

Impatience
Anger
Aloofness

Each character defect has an opposite habit or virtue.

For example,

The opposite of impatience is patience.
The opposite of anger is calm.
The opposite of aloofness is warm or gregarious.

Fortunately, as humans, we can thank God our character defects are almost always only revealed to us one at a time. This gives us the opportunity to look at them carefully and make choices on how we would like to respond to them.

By understanding that each character defect has an opposite habit, you can then begin the journey to identifying your character defects and slowly replacing them with more useful behaviors.

What mistakes do people make when trying to overcome their character defects?

One of the biggest mistakes I made for most of my adult life until my late thirties was not valuing my character defects. For the longest time if I felt impatient or distracted, I would resign myself to believing that these defects were a part of my nature, rather than something I could change. Here are some mistakes I made around my character defects (and still do at times!)

We accept them as a part of our nature

Instead of seeing character defects as an invitation to grow, many people identify them as a core part of their identity; something that is a part of their DNA. You can see this idea expressed in phrases like:

“A tiger can’t change it’s stripes” or “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

We attach guilt to the expression of our character defects

Many well-intentioned people become dysregulated and feel that they “fall victim” to a character defect. This might look like using an angry tone of voice at someone you love or avoiding responsibility for helping out around the house.

For these well-intentioned individuals, these momentary lapses in character lead to guilt and shame, which can further catalyze the downward cycle into unhelpful or antisocial behaviors.

Here is the process I use to root out my character defects and replace them with more useful behaviors in my life.

3 steps to remove character defects and improve your habits

Step One: Notice when a character defect arises

Notice when you start to feel frustrated, resentful, impatient or distracted. For the longest time, if I was sitting with my children, I would feel the need to grab my phone and scroll, rather than enjoying that precious, beautiful time with them.

Because I assumed this was just a part of my ADHD and not something I could change, I resigned myself to it being a part of my nature, when in fact all I had to do was identify the opposite of that character defect.

Step Two: Name the character defect and it’s opposite

In the example above, I would become distracted when I was spending time with my children. The opposite of distracted is focused. Just by noticing the character defect and realizing their is an opposite behavior, you have made a huge leap.

Step Three: Act “as if” to establish a new habit

Now that you have acknowledge the character defect and identified it’s opposite, your next step is to act “as if” you have mastered the new habit you want to establish.

You might be wondering, “doesn’t this make me fake if I am acting ‘as if.’?”

The answer to this question lies in the definition of authenticity.

Authenticity is acting in alignment with our values and beliefs.

When we act “as if” we are aligning ourselves with a higher standard which we are choosing for ourselves. This is the most authentic thing we could do!

Continuing with the example above, while sitting with my children, when I start to notice I am distracted and then identify that being focused is the opposite of this character defect, my next step is to act, “as if” I am focused.

Will I have lapses of focuses and need to return to this practice?

Definitely.

Will I be more focused, more often, simply as a result of this small tweak?

Certainly.

Summary

Your character defects are not something to feel guilty or ashamed of. Rather, they are an invitation to you to gain greater awareness of a negative habit that can be replaced by an opposite habit. To get started, try these steps:

Notice when a character defect arises.
Name the character defect AND it’s opposite.
Act “as if” you had mastered the opposite of your intrusive character defect.

Hope this helps 🤙

Hi, I'm Sean 👋

After building three successful businesses in five years, I felt a strong pull to create a broader impact—not just within my businesses but in the larger community.

I struggled with balancing my desire to share my expertise with my commitment to raising two young children and running multiple businesses.

Creating a mastermind group of accomplished entrepreneurs helped me realize there’s never a “perfect time” to start sharing your knowledge—the time is always now.

Guided by the wisdom and accountability of my mastermind peers, I began publishing and helping others, turning my expertise into a source of value for those navigating similar challenges.

If you'd like to contact me, you can connect with me via my LinkedIn page.