By intentionally adjusting thoughts and behaviors, everyone can change their personality.
Shannon Sauer-Zavala, a clinical psychologist and personality change researcher at the University of Kentucky, USA, states that her research confirms that individuals can shape the personality traits necessary for success and achieve the life they desire.
This may seem contrary to the belief held by most people that one’s personality confines them to a box, compelling them to choose partners, companions, and careers based on their inherent traits.
What is Personality and What is Not?
According to psychologists, personality is your characteristic way of thinking, feeling, and behaving.
Changing personality can help you live the life you desire (Image: SolStock/Getty Images).
Are you someone who tends to think pessimistically about situations in life, or are you more of a go-with-the-flow type? Do you get easily angry when someone cuts you off in traffic, or do you choose to believe that person was just momentarily lost, perhaps rushing to the hospital? Do you wait until the last minute to take action, or do you plan ahead and dive right in?
Personality can be viewed as a summary of your responses to such questions. Depending on your answers, you may be considered optimistic, empathetic, or reliable.
Research shows that all the traits that define an individual’s personality can be summarized into five broad traits, commonly referred to as the “Big Five” traits.
Since the early 1930s, psychologists have scoured dictionaries to extract all words that describe human nature and categorize them into similar themes; for instance, words like “kind,” “thoughtful,” “friendly” are grouped together.
They also discovered that thousands of words can be explained by categorizing them according to five traits: emotional instability, extroversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness.
So, what is not personality? People often feel vulnerable when others speak poorly of their personality and tend to protect themselves, believing it is their essence, their core value.
However, according to scientists, personality is not about what you like, dislike, or prefer, nor is it about your sense of humor. Personality is not about the values within you or what you deem important.
In other words, changing “the Big Five” does not alter the core values of who you are. It simply means learning to respond to life situations with different thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Can You Change Your Personality?
Can personality change? Personality is the characteristic way a person thinks, feels, and behaves. While it may seem difficult to change personality, people are always changing their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Suppose you are not necessarily a punctual person. If you start thinking “arriving on time shows respect for others” and begin to feel proud when you arrive early to appointments, while also arranging other activities to improve your punctuality, such as setting an alarm to wake up a little earlier… this means you are exhibiting the traits of a reliable person.
If you maintain these changes in thinking, feeling, and behavior over time, you will truly become more reliable. Your personality has changed!
Data collected through research has confirmed this. In general, personality changes throughout a person’s lifetime. As people age, they tend to experience fewer negative emotions, become more positive, more conscientious, focus more on positive relationships, and judge others less.
Of course, there are varying degrees. Some people change significantly while others change less. The process of changing personality occurs more quickly if an individual makes intentional adjustments. With deliberate focus, a person can change their personality in as little as 20 weeks instead of 20 years.
Nurturing Personality Traits that Suit You Best
Cognitive-behavioral techniques for changing personality are quite simple and can be implemented without a therapist.
The first factor to consider is changing your way of thinking – this is the cognitive aspect. You need to understand your thoughts to determine if these thoughts are keeping you stuck in behavioral patterns associated with a specific personality trait.
For example, if you are thinking “people only care about themselves”, you will likely act defensively around them.
The next factor is behavior. You need to be aware of your current behavioral tendencies and experiment with new ways of responding. If you are defensive towards others, they may react negatively to you.
For instance, when they walk away or become annoyed with you, it shows that you cannot trust them. Instead, if you try to behave more openly, such as sharing with a colleague that you have been assigned a difficult task, you will have the chance to see that others change their behavior towards you.
These cognitive-behavioral strategies are highly effective in promoting personality change because personality is simply the characteristic way of thinking and behaving of each person. Continuously changing your perspective and actions will lead to habits that, over time, will form the personality you desire.
