Insider Book: Book Recommendation: Why You Act The Way You Do By Dr Tim Lahaye

Why You Act The Way You Do by Tim Lahaye is a book on behavioural psychology. It is a great read to understand our own mindset, behaviours and habits.

The book “Why you act the way you do” is a personality development book. If you are a shy person or dealing with low self-confidence, you must read this book. Everyone has been created with a different personality and ability. We can’t expect everyone to behave like what we thought or how we behave.

Personality means how do you act or handle different situations. Smart people have well known how to manage those situations. You can also build up the right personality from those people to your personal growth. In this book, the author explains different personalities in different situations.

In this book, Tim Lahaye explains how to behave different personalities in different situations. This book helps you to understand why other people are not behaving like you and accept them as they are. He divided personalities into 4 categories

Sanguines are happy people and these personalities enjoy life and are also comfortable with surrounding people.

Cholerics are a serious set of individuals and they are with good work ethics and do not bother about other things. they are focused on one work, keep doing to achieve the same and positive thinker.

The Melancholics are with high IQ power and creativity. These personality people always think in a creative way to make a better outcome. 

Phlegmatics are usually quiet they don’t like to harm anyone and follow smooth ways to handle people. 

However, individuals can’t exhibit only one type of personality in every situation. The author says you should adopt the different personalities in different situations as suitable. 

Author Tim suggests we align with other personalities to get the effectiveness and also explains in which occasions which personality should be aligned. By aligning the other personalities we can strengthen and gradually can erase the weaknesses.

Also explains the weakness of each personality which was earlier mentioned. Regardless of the weaknesses associated with these personality types, Tim provides practical steps that could be taken to overcome them. 

Also, the book is especially important for those on the path to Financial Independence, especially if you are trying to curb expensive habits like high spending or self-destructive habits like continually changing investment strategies.

Lahaye explains how you can improve yourself by critically analysing your own strengths and weaknesses, your upbringing and personal development, and how they play a role in your personality. Lahaye explains understanding your ‘temperaments’ and mapping them to behaviours can help you to understand them better. Our Temperaments are mainly inherited from our parents, and fit into the character of extroverted or introverted in the following categories;

Sanguine – Leadership, Responsive, Social, Outgoing, Lively

Choleric – Optimistic, Impulsive, Excited, Aggressive, Restless

Melancholy – Anxious, Pessimistic, Quiet, Rigid

Phlegmatic – Calm, reliable, Controlled, Thoughtful, Passive 

Overall, this book challenged a lot of my preconceptions on behaviour and through some critical self-reflection. Well worth a read!