You've reminded me of something I've been thinking about lately and feel like writing down.
If you try to eliminate something from your personality in a straightforward way, what tends to happen is that it goes underground. You haven't gotten rid of X; you've fragmented your consciousness so that you're no longer aware of X, which makes you think X is gone when really it's continuing to operate. And X can work a lot more mischief now that it's autonomous from the part of you that wants to regulate it.
A straightforward example is the religious fanatic who suppresses his "demonic" impulses. We all know what such people tend to really be like.
Perhaps a more meaningful example for this forum is the kind of person who wants to overcome his fear by motivating himself to think he's not afraid and by executing certain actions to prove it. The trouble with doing this naively is that you can end up not with an absence of fear, but with unconscious fear, which continues to prevent you from doing things, only in ways you can't explain.
Of course, literature is replete with examples of this dynamic. The bottom line is that you can't minimize X in yourself by trying to eliminate it. It seems that a better strategy is to stay aware of X as it is happening. That way X and the part of you that is against X remain in the same field and there is a possibility of integration.
So, counterintuitively, if you really want to minimize something in yourself you have to accept it.
This sounds neat, but is it true? Executing actions really does drive away fear, moreover it seems to be the only effective way to overcome fear. If you tried it, you know. :-) Quitting smoking or stopping manipulative behavior cold turkey really does work, while the gradual approach doesn't work and is self-deceptive. I have decisively and successfully driven away certain qualities, and other people agree when asked that I no longer have them.