Speaker 1: Hi guys, it's Scott. Some quick housekeeping before we start
Speaker 1: the episode today. First of all, I'm with iHeartRadio Now.
Speaker 1: I'm very excited about this. iHeartRadio is the number one
Speaker 1: podcast network in the world, and I think they're going
Speaker 1: to take the podcast to the next level. We're going
Speaker 1: to be trying all sorts of things for you all.
Speaker 1: Keep your brain stimulated. Also, in the realm of big news,
Speaker 1: I wear glasses now, so ladies don't go too crazy. Finally,
Speaker 1: I've decided as a New Year's resolution that this year
Speaker 1: I want to decrease my agreeableness levels by about twenty
Speaker 1: five percent, which means I'm not allowing any bullshit this year.
Speaker 1: If I don't believe something is true, I'm going to
Speaker 1: say it. Sorry, not sorry, But enough about me. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about you. Happy New Year. It's a new year,
Speaker 1: new you. Right. Well, I've got some good news and
Speaker 1: some bad news here a few folks. The good news
Speaker 1: is that it's a new year, a fresh start. This
Speaker 1: is a great time to motivate yourself to set an
Speaker 1: important personal goal. This is a particularly good start to
Speaker 1: a new year since, according to the quote fresh start effect,
Speaker 1: motivation increases after a temporal landmark, such as the beginning
Speaker 1: of a new week, month, or year. Temporal landmarks demarcate
Speaker 1: a time difference between when you were the imperfect you
Speaker 1: and when you are the new you. Since January one
Speaker 1: this year fell on a Monday, that means this is
Speaker 1: a double fresh start. So yay, good news. But here's
Speaker 1: the bad news. Even with this newfound motivation that we
Speaker 1: all have right now, I hate to break it to you,
Speaker 1: but you are still you. As John cabin Zen put it,
Speaker 1: everywhere you go, there you are every new year. The
Speaker 1: aspiration to change aspects of one's personality usually starts out
Speaker 1: big and then rapidly declines once people realize that mere
Speaker 1: aspiration isn't enough. Make no doubt, people definitely want to
Speaker 1: change their personality. Americans spend over eleven billion dollars each
Speaker 1: year on self help books and programs that promises to
Speaker 1: help them change their personality and have an amazing life.
Speaker 1: When asked, is there any aspect of your personality that
Speaker 1: you would like to change? Psychological research shows that about
Speaker 1: two thirds of people say they would like to change themselves,
Speaker 1: and further, these desires tend to come from dissatisfaction. For instance,
Speaker 1: people want to become more extroverted if they aren't happy
Speaker 1: with their relationships, hobbies, or friendships. They want to become
Speaker 1: more conscientious if they are not happy with their finances
Speaker 1: or work performance. And look, don't get me wrong, it's
Speaker 1: a good thing to want to change your personality. Personality
Speaker 1: matters a lot. Personality traits predict important life outcomes such
Speaker 1: as success and love and work, life, well being, health,
Speaker 1: and longevity. But here's the question we're going to tackle today,
Speaker 1: just how much can we change our personality. One view
Speaker 1: is that personality is set in stone by adulthood and
Speaker 1: can hard budge no matter what you do. Another view
Speaker 1: is that personality is entirely due to your circumstances in
Speaker 1: life and it's constantly in flux. Which one do you
Speaker 1: think is right? Yes, a student listener, both of these
Speaker 1: extreme views are wrong. Throughout the course of the day,
Speaker 1: we all fluctuate in our personality traits, So yeah, context matters. However,
Speaker 1: when quote whole distributions, which is the technical term that's
Speaker 1: used in the psychological literature. When whole distributions of thinking, emotions,
Speaker 1: and behavioral patterns are taken into consideration, there are consistent
Speaker 1: individual differences. For instance, almost all of us crave peace
Speaker 1: and quiet at times during the day, but on the whole,
Speaker 1: some of us need a lot more solitude than others.
Speaker 1: This new understanding of personality, which is also the correct
Speaker 1: view of personality, means that there is no essence to
Speaker 1: your personality. Yes, genes definitely influence your patterns of thoughts, emotions,
Speaker 1: and behavior, but there's nothing essential about being a certain way.
Speaker 1: With enough habitu adjustment to your patterns over time, you
Speaker 1: really can change who you are. In other words, you
Speaker 1: are who you repeatedly are. I'm proud of that statement.
Speaker 1: I hope that made sense to you. You are who
Speaker 1: you repeatedly are. A large body of research shows that
Speaker 1: personality traits can and do change. So we're going to
Speaker 1: come back to some good news here. The research literature
Speaker 1: on personality change is really a vast and fascinating line
Speaker 1: of research. The research literature and personality change began by
Speaker 1: focusing on changes that occur during therapy and major life
Speaker 1: events such as getting married and changing jobs. And the
Speaker 1: research does show that personality changes, you know, through prolonged therapy,
Speaker 1: good therapy, if you're a good therapist, it can change
Speaker 1: in the negative direction if you have a terrible therapist. Also,
Speaker 1: a personality can change when you are in a relationship
Speaker 1: again in multitude of ways, and then when you change jobs,
Speaker 1: you move somewhere else. So yeah, all these the personal
Speaker 1: change literature shows that certainly environment matters. However, more recent
Speaker 1: research which we're gonna double click on today, shows that
Speaker 1: it's possible to intentionally change your personality traits over time.
Speaker 1: Repeated state level changes can eventually turn into hardened trait
Speaker 1: level changes. Repeated state level changes like your momentary changes
Speaker 1: in thinking, emotion, and behaviors can eventually turn into hardened
Speaker 1: trait level changes. That is so important to recognize. That's
Speaker 1: actually revolutionary when you really think about it. However, there's
Speaker 1: a big catch, and this might be the biggest catch
Speaker 1: of this entire episode today beside me wearing glasses, and
Speaker 1: that catches that it seems to require follow through, an
Speaker 1: effort over the long run to cause long lasting changes
Speaker 1: to your personality. That's right, it takes follow through. Psychologist
Speaker 1: Nathan Hudson has been leading the way on designing interventions
Speaker 1: that can create long lasting changes in personality. In one
Speaker 1: seminal study, doctor Hunt and his colleagues presented people with
Speaker 1: brief descriptions of each of the Big five traits of personality.
Speaker 1: The big five traits are extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism which
Speaker 1: is the opposite of emotional stability, and openness to experience
Speaker 1: and the researchers asked people to nominate which of these
Speaker 1: dimensions they would like to work on specifically to change
Speaker 1: throughout the course of the semester. You with me so far? Okay?
Speaker 1: People were then presented with a list of challenges that
Speaker 1: were specific concrete actions people could take to pull their
Speaker 1: state level thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in line with their
Speaker 1: desired traits. A total of fifty challenges were created for
Speaker 1: each of these Big five personality domeans. Each week, people
Speaker 1: could select new challenges, and to make things even more engaging,
Speaker 1: the researchers presented it as a game, a fun game huh,
Speaker 1: where they can earn bronze, silver, gold, or diamond quote
Speaker 1: metals by completing the challenge multiple times at increasingly greater frequency.
Speaker 1: So what did the researchers find. The researchers found that
Speaker 1: for most of the Big five traits, successfully completing greater
Speaker 1: numbers of challenges predicted greater personality growth over time. According
Speaker 1: to the researchers quote, the pattern of results seems to
Speaker 1: suggest that taking even small but consistent steps toward pulling
Speaker 1: one's behaviors in alignment with one's desired traits has the
Speaker 1: potential to produce trait growth. That's huge. That is a
Speaker 1: really revolutionary finding. Critically, though, the researchers found that desiring
Speaker 1: trait change and making plans to change oneself but not
Speaker 1: falling through in those plans backfired ront row. That's my
Speaker 1: Scooby Doo sound rot row, as the researcher suggest. Perhaps
Speaker 1: a reason is that people who continually accepted extroversion challenges
Speaker 1: but failed them may have begun to reason, well, maybe
Speaker 1: I am even less extroverted than I thought because I
Speaker 1: cannot seem to complete these challenges, and this may have
Speaker 1: led to decreases in their extraversion levels over time. Another
Speaker 1: possibility is that sometimes the very act of declaring a
Speaker 1: goal is construed by individuals as progress toward that goal.
Speaker 1: People might think they have already done something to progress
Speaker 1: towards their goals, and that can actually undermine their motivation
Speaker 1: to do what it actually takes to advance the goal. Indeed,
Speaker 1: Peter Gallwitzer and his colleagues found that merely announcing one's
Speaker 1: intention to change publicly can give people a premature sense
Speaker 1: of already possessing the aspire to trait or identity. So
Speaker 1: following through on your newfound motivation matters. But you can
Speaker 1: do it. I am here to encourage you today because
Speaker 1: it's worth the effort. The latest science of personality change
Speaker 1: suggests that you can cause long lasting changes to your
Speaker 1: personality by repeatedly changing your habits of thinking, acting, and
Speaker 1: reacting to the world around you. What's more, various psychologically
Speaker 1: validated techniques such as implementation, intentions, self reflection, cognitive behavioral therapy,
Speaker 1: and behavioral activation can cause personality change, not just for
Speaker 1: those in the therapist couch, but for all of us. So,
Speaker 1: my friends, I'm now going to leave you with this
Speaker 1: episode with some science back tips for changing your personality.
Speaker 1: I have gone through the hard work of reading lots
Speaker 1: and lots of technical scientific papers, and I'm just going
Speaker 1: to summarize them all and just give you some practical,
Speaker 1: actionable steps to get you started on your journey to
Speaker 1: actually be a new you, not just say oh, new year,
Speaker 1: new you knew me to actually be a new you.
Speaker 1: First of all, choose to embark on a new chapter
Speaker 1: in your life. Decide it's time for a fresh start,
Speaker 1: and look, starting today is great because it's still early
Speaker 1: in the new year. There's still hope. Next, it's time
Speaker 1: for goal setting. Focus on the one trait or two
Speaker 1: traits that would mean the most to you to change.
Speaker 1: Don't try to change everything. Let's focus on a few
Speaker 1: manageable aspects of your personality that you would like to change.
Speaker 1: As a guide, let's go through the big five traits
Speaker 1: of personality. So the first Big five trait is extraversion.
Speaker 1: Ask yourself, how outgoing and sociable am I? And is
Speaker 1: that something I really want to change about myself? The
Speaker 1: next Big five trait is conscientiousness. Ask yourself, how hard
Speaker 1: working and effective am I? And reaching my goals? If
Speaker 1: that's something that's upon self reflection you decide you want
Speaker 1: to change, maybe that's going to be the one that
Speaker 1: you're going to prioritize. The next Big five trait is neuroticism.
Speaker 1: Ask yourself, how anxious and emotionally unstable am I? Not
Speaker 1: be honest with yourself, okay, be honest If you are
Speaker 1: an emotional mess, and you decide, you know what, I
Speaker 1: don't want to be an emotional mess anymore. This is time.
Speaker 1: This is the time for me to change. Then all
Speaker 1: the power to you. The next one is agreeableness. Ask
Speaker 1: yourself and reflect how well do I cooperate with others
Speaker 1: and am I considered a highly valued social partner? Now
Speaker 1: that could be something that you really might want to
Speaker 1: change in direction. As I stated cheekily but honestly at
Speaker 1: the beginning of this podcast, I'm trying to decrease my
Speaker 1: agreeableness levels because I find myself agreeing too much with
Speaker 1: people when I sometimes when I don't actually agree with them.
Speaker 1: But for some people, they might want to increase their
Speaker 1: agreeableness levels, like, for instance, if you actually are innately
Speaker 1: in a colossal asshole and no one likes you and
Speaker 1: everyone stays away from you, and then you feel lonely
Speaker 1: about that and isolated, you may actually benefit from increasing
Speaker 1: your agreeableness levels. Finally, the last dimension of the Big
Speaker 1: five is openness to experience. Reflect how open am I
Speaker 1: to new ideas, feelings, beautiful things, and creative ideas. That
Speaker 1: might be something that you might want to really change
Speaker 1: this year. You might want to be more open in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. So this step is self reflection, which
Speaker 1: one of these traits that I just read stands out
Speaker 1: to you the most in need of some self adjustment. Now, look,
Speaker 1: do not announce your intention on social media or anywhere publicly.
Speaker 1: The research that I already mentioned suggests that might fool
Speaker 1: you into thinking that you actually already did something toward
Speaker 1: reaching your goal. And let's say that you have a
Speaker 1: big following and you announce your intention. Here everyone, it's
Speaker 1: a new year, it's going to be a brand new me,
Speaker 1: and you get so many likes for that, you might
Speaker 1: feel like you're done. I'm like, you know what, that's
Speaker 1: all I really wanted anyway, So you might not actually
Speaker 1: go through the work to change. Now it's time to
Speaker 1: follow through create implementation intentions. Now, what is an implementation intention. Well,
Speaker 1: implementation intentions take the format of if then plans. If
Speaker 1: something happens, then you automatically do something else, no questions asked,
Speaker 1: and no justification to get out of it. What you
Speaker 1: do with implementation intentions, or sometimes researchers call them implementation plans,
Speaker 1: is that you create a series of relevant if then plans,
Speaker 1: So you don't have to think about it. Some examples
Speaker 1: of implementation intentions include if I have to work over
Speaker 1: or a concentrated period of time, then I switch into
Speaker 1: flight mode, and that might be a way of increasing
Speaker 1: your conscientiousness. Another example would be if I have no
Speaker 1: meetings before one o'clock PM, then I will go to
Speaker 1: the gym. Or here's another example, if you want to
Speaker 1: increase your openness to experience. If I see something beautiful,
Speaker 1: then I will take a photo and appreciate it. So
Speaker 1: what do we do once we have our implementation intentions
Speaker 1: well in line with mindful cognitive behavioral therapy. Become more
Speaker 1: aware of your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, notice mindfully your
Speaker 1: usual tendencies, and try to intentionally do something different than
Speaker 1: what you normally do, which takes us to the fascinating
Speaker 1: realm of behavioral activation. So the field of behaval activation.
Speaker 1: What you can do is you can look at a
Speaker 1: list of challenges that researchers have come up with and
Speaker 1: for each demean of personality, choose the challenges that pertain
Speaker 1: to the personality demean you are working on changing and
Speaker 1: just act, just don't think so much about it, act
Speaker 1: and let your cognitions follow. Now, what I done is
Speaker 1: a resource for you all is I've put links to
Speaker 1: all the relevant papers and examples of the challenges, as
Speaker 1: well as a link to the full list of fifty
Speaker 1: challenges from the researchers in the show notes to this episode.
Speaker 1: So as a resource to this episode, you can go
Speaker 1: to the Psychology podcast dot com and click on the
Speaker 1: show notes for the latest episode and you'll see all
Speaker 1: the resources that I added to help you change your
Speaker 1: personality and then choose the challenges that pertain to the
Speaker 1: personality do mean you are working on changing? You can
Speaker 1: also subscribe to my new substac newsletter called Beautiful Minds,
Speaker 1: which has a whole bunch of resources as well. Next,
Speaker 1: we want to gammify your project here of changing your personality.
Speaker 1: What I mean by gamify well, you can compete with
Speaker 1: your friends and see who can complete the most challenges
Speaker 1: in a one month period. Let's say whoever wins has
Speaker 1: to buy everyone else a drink or something like that.
Speaker 1: You know, do what you can to create a little
Speaker 1: game out of it and pick a different challenge every day.
Speaker 1: Stay at it, be patient and kind to yourself if
Speaker 1: you struggle with some of the challenges and also have
Speaker 1: realistic expectations about the rate of growth in personality change.
Speaker 1: Your personality won't change overnight. Be critical of any self
Speaker 1: development book or course that claims to give you instant
Speaker 1: or radical changes in your personality. Just as it took
Speaker 1: many years for you to develop your habitual patterns of thoughts, feelings,
Speaker 1: and behaviors, it will take some time to alter them
Speaker 1: in the long run. The good news is that the
Speaker 1: latest research on personality change suggests quite clearly that state
Speaker 1: level changes that are maintained for extended periods of time
Speaker 1: have the potential to coalesce into trait changes. And that's
Speaker 1: what you want if you actually want to change your
Speaker 1: personality in the long run. You want trait changes, not
Speaker 1: just state changes, Folks. Over time, state level behaviors can
Speaker 1: become learned, autumatized, and habitual, but you have to do
Speaker 1: the work. There are no shortcuts in life, at least
Speaker 1: when it comes to causing long lasting changes to your personality.
Speaker 1: And finally, once you've actually changed your personality and only
Speaker 1: then feel free to announce what you went through to
Speaker 1: get there in public and social media, your journey when
Speaker 1: inspire others. Also, people will probably notice that it's actually
Speaker 1: a new y. I just want to end this episode
Speaker 1: by encouraging you all and being your cheerleader here to
Speaker 1: do the hard work required to change your personality or
Speaker 1: at least aspects of your personality that you really want
Speaker 1: to change, because I really believe in you all, and
Speaker 1: I'm rooting for you all. So happy New Year, and
Speaker 1: I'm really excited for twenty twenty four. In the psychology
Speaker 1: podcast Peace