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Can you change your personality? You probably have an opinion on this topic. We all probably do to some degree. I recently read this article in The Atlantic by Olga Khazan titled, “I Gave Myself Three Months to Change My Personality” with an unsurprising subtitle of “The results were mixed.” What I really liked about the article is that the writer spoke to experts and read literature on the subject. She also experimented with some of the tactics and analyzed her results, even if those findings were mixed.
Overall, it’s a well-written article with just the right amount of humor to keep you interested and I was interested. You see, all throughout my childhood and early teens I was quite introverted. I made and had close friends, but it took me a while to nurture those relationships. Extroverts just seemed more confident and sure of themselves and I wanted some of that.
According to the writer, and mind you she does cite her sources, “Psychologists say that personality is made up of five traits: extroversion, or how sociable you are; conscientiousness, or how self-disciplined and organized you are; agreeableness, or how warm and empathetic you are; openness, or how receptive you are to new ideas and activities; and neuroticism, or how depressed or anxious you are.”
Then Khazan goes on to write, “Researching the science of personality, I learned that it was possible to deliberately mold these five traits, to an extent, by adopting certain behaviors.”
The article then delves into Khazan’s own experiments with various activities to which she hoped would make her more extroverted and less neurotic. You should read the whole thing, but spoiler alert, there wasn’t a drastic change. However, she did get better at socializing and she did become less neurotic. But was this a permanent change, or was it temporary? That’s hard to tell, especially since this is someone’s experience. This is further complicated with the fact that perhaps Khazan didn’t actually change her personality, but instead acquired new skills to navigate the world and those specific situations that she wanted to change. Again, you should read the entire article for more context. Khazan was able to slightly mold her personality (or acquire new skills; your pick) by making a conscious decision to do so. She talked to strangers at parties, went to anger management and improv classes, etc., which are all indications that she was thinking practically on how to change or improve her personality. In other words, she made conscious choices that had real life ramifications.
That brings me back to my story. So, once I got into college, I made the conscious decision to be more outgoing and to be more confident. I didn’t have any scientific statistics or research, but I had a desire to change or to acquire new skills. Case in point; I wanted to join my college’s newspaper staff. I didn’t know how to do this. I didn’t know anyone on staff. I hadn’t even taken any journalism classes yet. The first thing I did was to write a letter to the editor, in response to an article I’ve read. To my surprise, they printed the letter. I was ecstatic to see my name on print. There it was, “Israel Sanchez.”
With that letter to the editor in hand, I decided to walk up to the Catalyst’s office and introduce myself. Seeing my name in print gave me the extra boost in confidence that I needed it.
“Hi, I’m Israel Sanchez,” I said to the girl who opened the door. Later, I found out that she was the Opinions Editor, so she had been the one to select my letter for print. “You guys published my letter,” I continued, showing my letter with pride. “I want to be a writer and I want to join your staff.”
She was delighted and surprised. She said that no one else had just walked in before and asked to join the newspaper staff. Usually students came referred by an advisor for resumé purposes or for internships, or they were students who were far in their journalism-major trajectory. To make a long story short, two years later I became the Editor-in-Chief. But it all started because I made a decision to be more outgoing and to do things that scared me. To use a colloquial expression, “I put myself out there.”
I don’t know if my personality has actually changed, or if I just acquired new skills. There are days where I feel more introverted than extroverted and vice versa. Maybe we’re all a bit like that. The good thing is to know that we can adapt and learn new skills and in doing so we can chase the dreams that matter to us in the process.
Can you please share this article with others in your circle? Thank you!
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