Self-confidence may stagger when we face up to our flaws severely and frequently. If we follow this approach in our lives, our flaws and failures will become our main source of concerns, leading to stress. We may become very good at spotting defects… so good that we may spend most of our time detecting flaws, focused into the bad things rather than the good ones. Such obsessive attention to the wrong things (flaws, manipulating or using other people, hurting other people, lying, and generally, those facts or actions that we think bad) may become the center of our lives.

Of course it makes sense to identify our personal hardships and fight them. But we are what we are, and plenty of our characteristics display both a positive and a negative side. If we are bold by nature, we must learn to control and harness such boldness, not to supress it. If we are obsessed with control, we must learn to take things easy and to relax, but not give up our liking for control. The main traits of our personality almost always are a double-edged sword. The secret lies into harnessing our traits for our benefit, not against us.

Knowing ourselves involves to be conscious about both our strenghts and weaknesses. When we accept that the pros and cons often stem from the same nature, we stop thinking so persistently of ourselves and we start to work with the virtues we really have.