We’re not perfect. But here’s the good news, nobody is.
Yes, we’re all obviously pretty awesome but we are still human. And being human means having weaknesses, amongst them one particular weakness, which is a fixed part of our personality and which held us back from what we really wanted out of life plenty times. Let’s stop hiding behind the idea of perfection and look at ourselves. Only by identifying our fatal flaw and by realizing that it might as well ruin our life, can we grow stronger than it.
Read on, and find out what your fatal flaw is and what you can do to have a fulfilled life despite it. We will never overcome our fatal flaw, it’s a part of who we are, but we can learn to handle it.
Kindness
No I haven’t made a typo. Kindness can be a fatal flaw. Don’t get me wrong, kind people are great. They are basically what holds out world together. But there is such a thing as too much kindness.
We all have this one friend who always falls for complete jerks though everyone around her can see that he’s not good for her, but still she stays with him. Why? Because she is kind. She is kind to a degree where she needs to fix people.
Some of us tend to surround ourselves with broken people. Those friends or significant others might be a wide range from depressed or suicidal or negative or a junkie or mean to brutal. What all these different types of people have in common, is that they are probably pretty broken inside.
The overly kind person will put all her strength and effort, all her time and money in making these persons whole again. This is a noble cause, but in too many cases we will end up cutting ourselves on the broken pieces of the person we were trying to fix – again and again and again.
A little tip: It’s great to help people but you have to put yourself first. If you are constantly sad and miserable, if you are exhausted and depressed, if you feel exploited or abused; you have to cut the person who is the cause of all of this out of your life. This will be very hard. But the only person you are truly responsible for is yourself. Get them professional help, talk to their families and then slowly back out of the relationship.
Jealousy
This idiot you were once dating cheated on you? Well, this sucks. But you can’t let every following relationship suffer because your ex-boyfriend was a douche. You might think that now you’ve seen the true face of men and that you better protect yourself by expecting of every single future partner that he, too, will betray you sooner or later. And when you find him texting with a female friend, or smiling at a girl in the bar, you see yourself proven right.
The road to relationship hell is paved with jealousy. If you are overly jealous, you will end up controlling and suffocation your partner to the point where he is either miserable in your presence or leaves you. Jealousy is a proven way to ruin perfectly good relationships.
A little tip: If you find yourself being the jealous type, you have to take a deep breath and force yourself to stop. Go and meet his female friends. Talk with your partner about your fears. Believe him when he says that he loves you and that he would never betray you. Yes, people lie, but if we expect everyone to lie all the time, the world would be a pretty awful place.
All relationships are built on trust and without trust you have nothing. If you continue with your mad jealousy, you will lose him. So decide if you love him more than your negative view of men and if so, put all your efforts into trusting him.
Anger
Your smoothie mixer burst open while you were making a delicious shake, and now there’s banana all over the kitchen. You cry angry tears, because it’s just not fair. You pick up the mixer (it was obviously his fault!) and throw it across the room. It breaks and you cut yourself on the broken pieces. You want to scream and destroy things, and you do until you’re exhausted and sink into a crying pile of misery. Now you’ve made an even bigger mess, you are bleeding and you have a sore throat. Great. This totally made it better.
In today’s western world without daily fights for survival, anger is one of the most useless emotions. It does nothing to better a situation. Unfortunately it’s also one of the hardest emotions to control.
Fear
You’d love to travel to Asia but you doubt that you can get used to the food, temperature or customs over there? All your friends are leaving for a skiing weekend, but you’re afraid to break a leg? You can’t open up to a new romance because you fear losing him? If one of these sentences sound like your thoughts, then your fatal flaw is fear.
A little tip: There are ways to conquer your fear. First you have to rationalize. Are your fears realistic? Compared to a car crash how probable is it really that your plane will crash? (Hint: not very.)
Every now and then, try something which frightens you. You don’t have to start with the wildest thing on your list. If you’re afraid of heights, you should probably not start with skydiving. (But you can if you wish a hard but quick lesson. Because after you’ve survived skydiving, really what is there left to be afraid of?) In most cases it’s easier to start with something small. Everyone starts small.
Sadness
Sadness is an evil thing that slowly but thoroughly destroys all motivation and joy you once had. If you often feel like you just can’t get up and do something, even if it’s something you were looking forward to, or if you sometimes randomly get a feeling of pointlessness, then sadness is your fatal flaw.
Do you feel down every once in a while but after a good night’s sleep it’s gone? Then, you’re going to be okay. But if sadness becomes your most frequent emotion and keeps you from doing anything with your life, up to the point where you stop leaving your couch, then you might be in danger. This state of sadness is called depression and if you don’t fight against it, it can ruin your life.
A little tip: One thing that helps people who are constantly sad and unmotivated is to make detailed plans of what they are going to do on every day of the week, but don’t overfill them. Sometimes if you get out of bed and have a shower, this is already an achievement. Each day put a few things on your list, like shop for groceries, call you mother, read a report, go get ice cream or shave. With a short to-do list it is easier for you to get up and actually do things. Afterwards you will feel proud of your achievement, no matter how little it may be.
Other ways of fighting depression are exercising or adopting a dog. In any case, you have to get help. Talk with a friend or a family member and make an appointment with a therapist. Sometimes depression is something physical, which is caused by a lack of a certain hormone, sometimes it comes from a traumatic experience you might not even remember.
Arrogance
You have worked your ass off to get to where you are now. You deserve your success. You are great at what you do. This is all true and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be proud of what you mastered.
But does this mean that you now look down at others? Does this mean that you are the best and that others can’t criticize or correct you, because you simply do not make mistakes? If you have answered yes, then you are arrogant. Arrogance may seem like your earned right but no one likes an arrogant person. Arrogance can cost you friendships, relationships and even jobs. So be careful.
A little tip: Look at the very best in your line of work. Look at the people who have changed the world with their inventions. I am pretty sure that you are still far from them. You are not the best. You are good, yes, but not the best.
Also, you have to remind yourself that though a person might have made it easy to avoid a mistake or ask a stupid question, this doesn’t mean that they are bad at everything. Everyone has a good side, even if it’s not something you value for yourself.
Indecisiveness
Maybe a lot of guys are interested in you or your head is filled with awesome ideas and plans, but you just can’t decide on just one. Do you want to be a lawyer or a salesperson? Should you give your heart to person #1 or person #2? Which idea do you work on first? Overwhelmed by all the possibilities and the pressure to decide, you do nothing.
Indicisiveness is a fatal flaw which keeps great and talented people from achieving greatness in their life. Don’t waste your awesomeness! You are good in many fields? Great! You might be able to work in several during your lifetime but you can’t realize them all at once.
A little tip: Set hard goals and deadlines for yourself. Tell yourself on the 11th of March at 3pm you will have decided whether to study literature or biochemistry. Then set a timeframe in which you will think about it (depending on how big a decision it is, this could be a day or a week earlier). At this point sit down, make a pro and con list, talk to friends, go on a walk, do whatever helps you to decide but stop doing it when your deadline arrives. Now decide, and then stick with your decision.