This has been a period of self-change in my life, mostly for the better. I've become more efficient, more fiscally conscious. I gave up dessert. And room by room, I've become neater.

There is plenty of room left - in those improved areas and many more - for ongoing self improvement.

I was feeling pretty good about my progress when I stumbled - and that is as accurate a description as I can conjure for this discovery - on my Achilles Heel. I have known about the Achilles Heel; have seen it in others; and I thought I knew mine.

I'm all for self improvement. But I find it isn't always exciting, nor fun, nor specific. It took me decades just to give up chocolate chip cookies. And now I realize that was the easy improvement!

I had a glimmer. It became a lighthouse. I discovered my Achilles Heel.

It is the original good news/bad news. Discovering it is the first step toward understanding how to get rid of it. Not discovering an Achilles Heel, after all, does not mean it doesn't exist; it just means that we don't know about it.

Now what? I can congratulate myself on recognizing what I need to understand and change. But that can be a small comfort. Who among us wants to examine our own Achilles Heel? It is so much easier to examine another's.

Like finding spinach in our teeth after a social event, the relief at seeing it and removing it is tempered by the knowledge that we were smiling for the entire event. We need to take this approach to the Achilles Heel. Our best friends have probably known about it for a long time and can help us find it, understand it and perhaps even extract it from our behavior.

Those of us who think we don't have any weak areas to strengthen are probably deceiving ourselves. The trick is to have friends who might be convinced to help us find our weaknesses. How many of us would volunteer such information? How many would agree to explore the subject if asked?

I'm all for self improvement. But I find it isn't always exciting, nor fun, nor specific. It took me decades just to give up chocolate chip cookies. And now I realize that was the easy improvement!

No turning back.

Jean Loxley-Barnard has been a writer all her life and studied both sociology and psychology at George Washington University where she earned a B.A. Her company, The Shopper, Inc., encompasses all the Loxley-Barnard family publications - The Shopper Magazines and Doctor to Doctor Magazine. She has been in the advertising, consulting and publishing business for 39 years.