Have you ever wanted to change your personality?
Research reveals that personality traits continue to evolve into adulthood. In general, people have been shown to increase in traits like self-confidence, warmth, self-control, and emotional stability as they age (Roberts & Mroczek, 2008).
While researchers now believe that personality change is possible, it is more likely to occur gradually, over time, and is most often modest in scale. While it is difficult to cultivate a complete personality change, small changes are possible with effort (Jackson, J.J., & Wright, A.J., 2024).
Significant life experiences can shape individual personality changes over the lifespan. Graduating, first jobs, new relationships, marriage and divorce are life events that have the strongest effects on personality change (Bühler et al., 2023).
Award-winning journalist and staff writer at The Atlantic Olga Khazan found herself frustrated with neurotic aspects of her personality and decided to see if she could change it. Her personal journey, chronicled in her book Me, But Better, is filled with empirical evidence that we can, in fact, change aspects of our personalities by behaving in ways that align with the kind of person we want to be.
Q: What inspired you to embark upon this personal experiment of personality change? Why was now the right time in your life to explore this topic?
Olga Khazan: I felt like I was stuck in a rut and really unhappy. Even though nothing was seriously wrong, I felt like my anxiety was sucking the joy out of life, and it made me struggle to make major life decisions. I felt like my friendships had withered away during COVID, but I wasn’t sure how to go about making more friends or deepening the friendships I already had. It turns out the key to all these things is to change various elements of personality, so that’s what I set out to do.
Q: In the extensive research you conducted on the topic of personality for Me, But Better, what findings most surprised you?
Olga Khazan: We think we won’t enjoy things that don’t align with our “natural” personalities, but that’s not always true. Several studies have shown that when introverts occasionally behave in extroverted ways, they feel happier. And in one study, introverts even reported feeling truer to themselves when they were behaving like extroverts. Behaving “authentically” isn’t as important to us as it might seem.
Q: Based on your experience and current research on personality, how much of our personalities do we have the power to change? Is there value in accepting ourselves for who we are, or is change always possible?
Olga Khazan: You should accept and appreciate yourself, and recognize the capability to change if you want to. Most people would like to change at least something about themselves, and it’s well within your power to do that. Though you’re not going to become unrecognizable, you can take meaningful steps toward becoming the kind of person you’d like to be through repeated effort and practice.
Q: What are your top three tips for readers who wish to change aspects of their personality?
Olga Khazan: For extroversion, I would sign up for an activity that recurs regularly and that doesn’t rely on you for scheduling. It can be a class or a book club or some other kind of gathering. The key is just to make it hard to get out of, so that you’ll actually go, and make it so you’ll see the same group of people each time.
For neuroticism, give meditation a try. This is very frequently given advice, but it works.
For conscientiousness, try tying the boring, tedious tasks that you don’t really want to do to the bigger goals in your life that are more meaningful. If you hate straightening your desk, for example, remind yourself that it’s so you can think more clearly on the big project you’re really excited about.
Q: What did you take away from this experience of experimenting with personality change? How has it changed your life?
Olga Khazan: One big way it changed my life is that it made me feel confident that I could handle becoming a mother. I previously thought that since I don’t have the personality of a typical mother (or what I thought one was like), I wouldn’t be a good parent. But then I realized that kids will bring out elements of your personality you didn’t realize were there.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from spending time with Me, But Better?
Olga Khazan: I hope they enjoy reading it. And I hope it makes them feel like they’re never stuck with some mindset, some rhythm, some pattern in their life that isn’t serving them.
