Best Self

I was reading the book titled Best Self: Be You, Only Better by Life Coach Mike Bayer. He suggests identifying at least two characters in your life: (1) is your fictional best self character and (2) are one (or more) anti-self characters.

When I did this exercise initially I thought of a good best self character: Mr. Clean, who in my opinion exhibits my favorite characteristics about myself:

1. He leaves the world better than when he found it.
2. He's strong.
3. He's dependable - there when you need him.
4. He's not afraid of tough jobs.
5. He's always smiling (he's cheerful) and never complains.
6. He's consistent and puts in the daily effort that is required to succeed.
7. He's confident.
8. He's simple - he only wears a white t-shirt.

It took me a while to discover my first anti-self, the one that likes to self-sabotage, but I finally figured out a good one. The opposite of Mr. Clean is Peter Petigrew, the character capable of turning into a dirty Rat in Harry Potter.

1. He's dirty. My worst self refuses to finish doing all the dishes, refuses to flush the toilet every time, refuses to brush my teeth twice daily, etc. Done once in a blue moon, these are harmless. However they turn into bad habits for me and they start to affect my whole outlook and life.
2. He'll morph into a hideous animal or a dishevled human being - whichever form is most convenient for him. He can easily hide from sight as a Rat.
3. He feels no shame - especially when I try to give up pornography for an extended period of time, my worst self comes out and tells me it's ok to just peek, its ok to just stroke once, its ok to tempt yourself. No, it's not ok!
4. Like any other animal he gorges on unhealthy but convenient food - whatever is in front of him.

One thing that has started to irk me is that I'll brew coffee using re-usable keurig k-cups. But then I won't clean this up immediately. Sometimes I'll let them sit in the sink for days. This isn't awful on its own, but this bad habit of leaving things left undone is seeping into the rest of my life. To fix this I decided the other day to simply buy the disposable k-cups.

I wonder if I have other anti-selves yet to be identified.