Personality Traits People Call Bad That Actually Work in Your Favor

Plenty of the traits we scold ourselves for carrying turn out to have an upside. If you've been reading about personality types or putting together some kind of self-improvement plan, you've probably run into a long list of habits you're told to fix. A few of them are worth keeping. Once you know which ones, you can build a plan around your actual personality instead of fighting it.

Take messiness. The usual read is that a messy person is lazy and gets nothing done, and that read is mostly wrong. People who let things pile up a little tend to take more risks and think more creatively. There's a limit, obviously. Leaving food out is a health problem, not a personality quirk, and you still need to find the things that matter when you reach for them. Keep it in bounds and the mess works for you.

Selfishness carries the same reflexive bad reputation. Say the word and people picture someone awful. A measured amount of it is healthy, though, and in truth most people could stand to be a bit more selfish. If you never look after yourself, you have nothing left to hand to anyone else. A little self-focus also helps you finish what you start. The trick is splitting your time between you and the people around you so that you stay on your own list of priorities.

Having an ego gets lumped in with being a jerk. That only holds when the ego is enormous. A modest one is just confidence wearing different clothes, and confidence is tied up with feeling happy and settled in your life.

Shyness isn't weakness, and you can learn to work alongside it rather than stamp it out. Shy people often listen well and make loyal friends to the few they let in close. They reflect more, which means they notice things, including the uncomfortable truths about themselves. Quiet types also make sharp observers.

Getting distracted feels like the enemy of productivity, yet it isn't always a loss. People whose attention wanders a lot are frequently the more creative ones. The wandering is how they stumble onto other ways of handling a problem that everyone else walked right past.

Then there's cynicism. Being critical of the world draws eye-rolls from some people, but a cynical streak usually comes paired with being level-headed and practical. The cynic is the one who doesn't fall for the scam.

A touch of neuroticism, used well, is an asset. In moderate amounts it lets you handle anxiety and stress more steadily than people who aren't wired that way, and it's linked to a better shot at succeeding at what you're doing.

Sensitivity makes some people want to grow a thicker skin. Hold off on that. Reading what other people feel and connecting to it is useful, and sensitive people tend to relate across a wide range of personalities.

Even laziness has a defense. A little of it means you're relaxed rather than wound tight. The downtime can motivate you and hand you space to turn over new ideas. Some of the best inventions came from someone wanting an easier way to do a tedious thing.

So the practical move is to stop treating these as flaws to purge. Fold them into how you understand your own personality and let them pull their weight in whatever plan you're building. If they're part of who you are, work with them.

References: http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/04/our-personalities-are-constantly-changing-even-if-we-think-theyre-not/ and https://chelseainoz.wordpress.com/tag/yin-yang/