This week’s question comes from L, in New York City. She asks:
Do you think that personality “flaws” (e.g. shyness, lack of confidence/self-esteem, being an approval-seeker) are entirely learned behaviors, or do you think that to some extent you are born with these characteristics? In other words, what do you think about nature vs. nurture when it comes to personality?
Here’s my answer:
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The People's Therapist 
Dear Will,
Thanks for this post!
I also wanted to say that I LOVE the graphics that you use to illustrate your posts.
Thank you so much for this. A resistance: what an awesome idea. That absolutely put into perspective some of my personality and gave me a really unexpected and big breakthrough. I’m jumping out of the pot, now… 🙂
Ohhh! Something just became very obvious to me. Knowing I’m in the pot isn’t enough. I just realised that I need to consciously steer my behaviour into a new direction until it becomes natural… in much the same way that I had to teach myself to say ‘that’ and ‘thought’ instead of ‘vat’ and ‘fought’.
Sigh. So slow at times. So very obvious now. Time to decide on the best ways to jump out of certain pots.
Thank you 🙂
[…] hunt for a solution. Understanding came as I watched a short film on nature versus nurture… the eye opener. Click. Aha, I get it, understanding why isn’t enough. Time for a sticky note on the […]