A conversation about what we do to ourselves, causing our life not to be the way we would like it to be.

This text explores the poor choices and decisions that ruin and control your life, often without you even realizing it.

No conversation or relationship in this world is as powerful as the conversation and relationship with yourself. And because of that, this is likely the hardest thing you’ll ever do in life.

Finding a good partner, making money, and improving your health seem complicated, but this conversation is the essence of it all. If you have a good conversation with yourself about yourself, you can change everything that doesn’t work in your life.

So, as much as I may be urging you to do something too difficult, at least read this text because I’ve tried to make this task as easy as possible for you. And if you do it, your life will finally start moving in the right direction.

How to Love Yourself: 19 Exact Steps

Why It’s Hard to See and Understand Ourselves

Why do we do bad things to ourselves and not change anything? We love the wrong person, make bad choices, etc.

1. Ah, That Ego

The ego is an integral part of us. Its primary role is to maintain a positive self-image and self-esteem. 📌 Ego is often confused with pride and vanity; however, they are just parts of it, and its behavior somewhat resembles pride and vanity.

The ego simply wants us to be correct. It’s a part of us that’s needed, among other things, for survival in this unjust world, where we also make mistakes. Without it, we would walk around ashamed of everything we’ve done wrong (like not solving a crossword correctly or not answering the phone when our mom calls, etc.).

So, the ego does its job, and to do it well, it uses ego defense mechanisms.

Whenever something happens, it pulls out a suitable mechanism and uses it. When we don’t solve the crossword correctly, the ego says it’s because the crossword was poorly written. When we don’t answer our mom’s call, our ego says it probably isn’t urgent. We have about 60 mechanisms available that we can use abundantly.

The essence is that the ego comforts us whenever we make a mistake.

Is it now a bit clearer why it’s difficult to see ourselves objectively, who we are, and what we do when the ego constantly whispers: “You’re right. They made a mistake.”

And interestingly, this doesn’t even have to be expressed outwardly. A person usually goes through this process alone.

• At one point, I had a client who was dealing with several self-induced severe problems and admitted to me that he still considered himself more intelligent than others. I mean, we all do this, but it was an interesting and honest conversation.

And as if the ego that goes and fixes our inner world isn’t enough, we also can’t see ourselves because we have a smudged window.

The Impact of Toxic Friendships on Our Self-Love

Why don’t we see clearly what we are doing (to ourselves)?

2. The Johari Window

Please bear with me; this will be over soon.

Have you heard of the Johari Window? In short, it was created in 1955, and its unusual name comes from the first names of the two scientists who invented it: Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham.

As you can see, we have a 2:2 score—things we see versus things we are completely unaware of.

The Johari Window helps people see and analyze themselves better because the less they analyze themselves, the greater the chances of missing out on seeing themselves clearly.

But the essence of this story is to help you understand that you, like everyone else, have parts of yourself that are inaccessible.

What is the best way to gain self-confidence?

It’s no secret that our unconscious and subconscious parts drive us.

Why do we just do things, without much thought?

3. Habits

How did this come about?

Some things we’ve practiced for a very long time. Some things we’ve practiced since childhood, so they are a fundamental, integral part of us. If you imagine yourself walking like a duck since childhood (let’s say someone in your family walks that way, and you imitate them), that walk will become a fundamental part of you. I took a silly example, but it also applies to other things you’ve practiced: thinking in a certain way, having prejudices, being afraid, having beliefs about the world… so many lovely examples, and I chose walking. But we understand each other.

What you practice for a long time will become you. What you practice from an early age is a fundamental part of you.

Now, if you imagine walking like a duck, it will undoubtedly affect your modeling career. But it won’t just affect that; your spine will also become crooked because our posture depends on how we walk.

Now imagine having specific fears and prejudices from your childhood… Imagine what they can distort.

Conscious and Unconscious Mind

Why is it hard to change our actions?

4. Automatic Reactions

Your unconscious and subconscious parts have another role: They take you to a place they recognize as familiar and, therefore, less dangerous than unfamiliar places.

• I use the term “place” not necessarily as a physical place but as an outcome, behavior, etc.

Because of this, you can imagine it as a driver holding your steering wheel, directing you to what you will do to achieve a certain (familiar) outcome.

Let’s say you learned in childhood that everyone always attacks you (that was the narrative in your family; teachers were unfair to you, and your parents weren’t very gentle either).

When someone speaks to you in an energetic or commanding tone, your driver automatically directs your behavior to: “This person is attacking you. Do what we always do – automatically and habitually. Defend yourself.”

The person might just be energetic, misspoken, or having a bad day, but your captain doesn’t concern himself with that. He only recognizes patterns from childhood and reacts as we’ve practiced long ago.

And you start attacking back/not listening to what that person is saying/wanting to escape/thinking the worst about them.

We do things automatically. We react to the same stimuli in the same ways.

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. Viktor Frankl

However, the good news is that there is a space between every stimulus and reaction where we can insert something. In that space, we can place a new response, something that is good for us.

How Conscience Work

To Summarize:

2. The parts of us that are least visible to us control us because they are not under our control. They are free to do whatever they want.

3. The subconscious and unconscious always react automatically and in the same way.

And yes, that’s us (I haven’t mentioned some other instances that control us because they aren’t necessary for this conversation with ourselves).

These are why we don’t see ourselves, don’t want to admit to ourselves that we’re wrong even when it endangers our lives, and keep doing things that don’t benefit us.

That’s why it’s necessary to adopt Frankl’s idea and put something in the space between the stimulus and what we always do. Because when we put something new in that space, it will become our new reaction.

So, it’s helpful to agree on one more thing that might prevent you from changing things in your life.

Suppression, Self-Control and Setting-Goals

Even if you tell yourself that you are wrong, you will be fine.

I know, I know… the ego. But as long as you defend yourself and think you’re always right, you won’t be doing yourself any favors.

However, I have some exceptional news for you.

We will defend ourselves automatically, spontaneously, naturally, and strongly forever. So, there’s no need to worry. Even if you lower your guard and stop defending yourself, you will always successfully defend yourself.

Even if you tell yourself that you are absolutely wrong, your ego will always and inevitably find a way to show you that you are right and great. So, if you admit you’re wrong, there’s no big problem or injury to your ego or yourself.

Do you know what the ego will do in that case? It will tell you that you’re exceptional and so extraordinary for being able to admit to yourself that you’re mistaken. You’re a much better person than others.

And this is wonderful because it means you can freely accept and admit (at least to yourself) your mistakes. It won’t hurt you at all.

📌 Personally, I find it a shame that people don’t understand this lesson in this way and therefore remain trapped in their bad patterns… just out of fear of damaging their self-image. The ego holds a grudge; don’t worry. Even if you prick it a little for a moment, it will quickly recover and help you restore a good opinion of yourself.

Do you admit to others that you made a mistake?

Now, it is awkward when others have seen us as silly, stupid, incompetent, lazy, rude, or something else, but we have three options here:

1. Not admit to them what we’ve realized about ourselves and that what they saw is true. Then work on it by ourselves.
2. Admit to them and turn it into a positive narrative. “Oh, I’m sorry I was so lazy… I’ll be better tomorrow.”
3. Admit to them and be proud of ourselves for holding up so well. You are so brave and honest with yourselves that you can openly discuss your flaws. This is already an advanced level—a level for the most mature, emotionally and mentally stable people.

Why acceptance is one of the most important things in life

But let’s get back to the topic:

To change things, it’s clear that we need to admit to ourselves what needs to change. To accept it, we first need to recognize what we’re doing, which is obviously difficult for the above reasons.

How to Approach the Problem

• Let’s do this privately and not inform anyone about what we’ve realized about ourselves.
• Let’s do this with the help of a professional who can explain why certain things happen in our lives unbiasedly.
• Let’s listen to people who mean well when they tell us we are doing something specific. There might be some truth in what they are saying.
• Let’s analyze the things people tell us in this way: “Let’s consider the possibility that this is true and that I really do this. Even if I have 100 excuses for myself, let’s ignore them for now and focus only on my options to fix this.”

Steps to Take:

1. Consider your options. What can you do that is opposite or gives you different results?
2. Understand that this will take time, and accept it in advance. Make an agreement with yourself not to give up, no matter how slow or challenging it gets.
3. Start implementing this today. You don’t need a symbolic date or reason.

What Makes Someone Likeable | Psychology

Facts:

2. If you force this, it will become ingrained in your unconscious and subconscious and become your automatic response, just like old patterns become ingrained. Sooner or later, you will stop walking like a duck 🙂.

How to become more assertive

5. You don’t have to admit your flaws to anyone. This is your conversation with yourself, and the goal is not to inform people but to fix the things that affect your life. Admitting to others can help you gain their understanding, but it’s much more important to try to fix things both for yourself and for them than to dwell on your flaws and mistakes.

6. Be persistent. There will be bad and difficult days, days when your old tendencies will win. The trick is to start over as soon as you can, every time you fail.

7. You can blame your parents (or destiny, or something) for how your life or your character turned out. They certainly are part of the problem. But blaming anyone won’t get you anything. The only way to gain something is to change the things you don’t like about yourself and not waste time and energy analyzing when and how things went wrong.

How to Talk to Ourselves About Our Parents

---

There you go. I hope this text, although complex to understand, is explained as clearly as possible.

A completely new life lies ahead of you, but you need to take different paths to live it. The first stop is to admit to yourself what you’re doing… and that’s the hardest one. The others are just tedious. I love you.