"What would you change about yourself?"

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Have you ever been asked what your weaknesses are or what you would change about yourself during a job interview? I certainly have.  Besides that, I spent nearly six years working in Human Resources.  It was almost standard practice to ask this question of potential job candidates. 

In a situation such as a job interview, it is generally not a good idea to start rambling off a list of your flaws, even if you are just trying to be honest and make yourself look more "human."  It may backfire making you seem difficult to work with, untrustworthy, or even unstable.  Instead, in this situation at least, the ideal way of handling this sort of question is to try to minimize our faults and try to find the most sterile, benign "undesirable" trait in our character to correct.

But what about real life?  Have you ever stopped and honestly asked and answered the question what would you change about yourself? Have you actually went about the uphill battle to change what you didn't like about yourself?  I recently pondered the question of what I would change about myself.  I had dodged the question for a while.  I mean, I like myself, and I have friends who tolerate like me too.  But the more I ran from the question the more it bothered me.

 An older gentleman who was a dear family friend would always say: "The biggest room in any of our homes is the room for improvement."  I knew--even as a teenager--exactly what he meant:  The "home" that is our mind, our heart, our character is always in need of work. Everyone has plenty of their own flaws to work on.  

In the end I'm really happy that I asked and answered that character question for myself.  I've got work to do.  Take a minute and ask yourself: What would you change about yourself? Answer it truthfully and realistically.  Then get to work on a new, improved, and better you!