Lying to Yourself

I'd just like to start by saying that everything I'm gonna say is based purely off of personal experience, this may or may not be helpful to you.

I think we all have at some point or another really struggled to overcome a bad habit, or possibly even an addiction. It may be a rather trivial character flaw or something quite serious, regardless of what it is the process which we go through to change is much the same and it's one where we learn a lot about ourselves. I'd like to just share with you something I've learned.

For a lot of people, one of the hardest things to do is to admit to others that they need help. But although this is hard for me, there is something much harder. For me the hardest thing to do is to be honest with myself. I truly struggle to admit to myself that I need help. Let me explain what I mean.

I do of course recognize that I have flaws that I should work on fixing. But the tendency is to think that if I am not in the moment struggling with a particular flaw, then I should just pretend it doesn't exist and try to avoid thinking about it.

Because of this the following pattern exists in my life, and possibly in yours.
1. I will be living my normal life.
2. Situation arises that exposes a particular flaw in my character
3. I am ashamed of myself, possibly feel guilty and wish I was a different person.
4. The feelings fade and I go on trying to pretend it never happened and never will again.
This pattern happens over and over again with stuff like losing my temper to more important things. The problem is that once step 4 is finished step 1 commences and each time step 3 feels worse and I start wondering if I will ever succeed in overcoming my flaws.

If you've made it this far and this doesn't sound like something you have a problem with you can skip reading the rest, but if you are like me than here's what I have found has helped me.

"...the truth will set you free" John 8:32

This quote has helped me enormously to begin changing who I am. To change who you are, you have to face who you are. You have to face the truth, and be honest to yourself. You can't lie to yourself and pretend you don't have a problem that you do have. You will never overcome your greatest flaws by closing your eyes to them or avoiding situations that expose them.
You can't send little kids to their rooms and expect them to be quiet for more than 10 minutes, so why do we think we can do that to our inner demons? You have to evict them (the inner demons not the little kids).
How do you get rid of your flaws? Idk, I'm not you. But for me, one of the most important steps was realizing that I would have to face my flaws head on and actively work on getting rid of them.