Is It Possible To Improve Your Personality? The Science Says Yes. Here's How To Do It. | Olga Khazan
Journalist Olga Khazan, author of "Me, But Better," discusses how to intentionally change your personality. She explores the Big Five aspects—extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness—offering practical, evidence-based strategies for making meaningful improvements in daily life.
Deep Dive Analysis
13 Topic Outline
Introduction to Personality Change and Olga Khazan's Book
Olga's Personal Motivation for Changing Her Personality
Defining Personality: Instinctive Traits and Goal-Oriented Tool
The Malleability of Personality: Genetics vs. Environment
Tackling Extroversion: Overcoming Isolation and Building Connections
Strategies for Increasing Social Interaction and Deepening Friendships
Exploring Agreeableness: Warmth, Empathy, Trust, and Boundaries
Navigating Disagreement and Cultivating Compassion in Relationships
Boosting Conscientiousness: Organization, Productivity, and Procrastination
Understanding and Reducing Neuroticism Through Mindfulness
The Role of Openness in Personality and New Experiences
Practical Steps for Making Sustainable Personality Changes
The Selfish Yet Beneficial Reason to Change Your Personality
6 Key Concepts
Personality
Personality encompasses the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that come most instinctively or naturally to an individual. It can also be viewed as a tool that helps a person achieve their goals, such as making friends or improving public speaking.
Volitional Personality Change
This concept refers to the idea that while a portion of personality is genetic (30-50%), environmental factors and deliberate techniques allow individuals to actively shape or influence their personality traits. It acknowledges that natural inclinations can be worked against.
The Big Five Personality Traits
These are five broad dimensions that describe human personality: Conscientiousness (organization, productivity), Agreeableness (warmth, empathy, trust), Openness (creativity, imagination, new ideas), Neuroticism (anxiety, depression, negative emotions), and Extroversion (sociability, cheerfulness, activity).
Episodic Future Thinking
A strategy used to boost conscientiousness and combat procrastination, which involves visualizing a desired future outcome very specifically. This detailed mental imagery, whether positive or negative, can motivate individuals to take the incremental, often tedious, steps required to achieve their goals.
Neuroticism
Defined as a personality trait characterized by depression, anxiety, negative thought spirals, worrying, and emotional lability. Individuals high in neuroticism tend to be easily overwhelmed by small frustrations and struggle with decision-making and savoring positive experiences.
Agreeableness
This trait is characterized by high levels of warmth, empathy, and trust in others. True agreeableness is not about being a pushover, but rather about being assertive in a kind and clear way, often involving setting healthy boundaries in relationships.
9 Questions Answered
Yes, to a certain extent. While 30-50% of personality is genetic, environmental factors and intentional practices allow for volitional personality change, meaning you can influence and shape traits you'd like to develop.
Personality is defined as the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that come most instinctively or naturally to an individual. It also serves as a tool that helps a person achieve their desired goals.
Introverts can participate in social activities by listening more than talking, such as attending a book club and hearing others' views without necessarily weighing in themselves. This still counts as a form of extroversion that is less draining.
Start by engaging in micro-interactions with people encountered daily, using statements rather than questions. For deeper connections, sign up for recurring activities with the same group of people that are hard to back out of, fostering consistent interaction.
True agreeableness involves high warmth, empathy, and trust, but it does not mean being a doormat. It's about being assertive in a kind and clear way, including setting healthy boundaries, rather than passively agreeing and building resentment.
Episodic future thinking is a powerful antidote, which involves visualizing the desired outcome or scenario very specifically. This broader goal provides motivation for the often tedious, incremental steps required to complete tasks.
Neuroticism (or its opposite, emotional stability) is considered the most important of the Big Five traits in terms of its impact on the quality of one's life, more so than extroversion.
Mindfulness, particularly through practices like meditation, is the main method for reducing neuroticism. This can range from structured programs like MBSR to shorter, daily meditations, focusing on accepting uncertainty and not taking responsibility for everything.
The most important reason to change one's personality is for personal happiness and well-being. While it may also improve how others perceive you, the primary benefit is an enhanced life, relationships, and overall happiness level for oneself.
26 Actionable Insights
1. Prioritize Social Connection
Actively seek and maintain human connection in your life, regardless of whether you identify as an introvert or extrovert, as it is crucial for overall happiness and well-being and can reduce anxiety and depression.
2. Practice Mindfulness Consistently
Engage in mindfulness practices, such as meditation (even for a few minutes daily), to reduce neuroticism, anxiety, and depression, as it is shown to be highly effective.
3. Accept Life’s Uncertainty
Recognize and accept that there is inherent uncertainty in life, and that you cannot take responsibility for every single outcome, which helps to reduce self-blame and anger.
4. Channel Anxiety into Action
When feeling anxious, make a to-do list of everything you’re worried about and what you can do to address it, then consciously set it aside to prevent dwelling and promote sleep.
5. Set Clear Boundaries
Communicate your needs and limits clearly and kindly in relationships to maintain agreeableness without becoming a pushover, preventing passive aggression and fostering healthier interactions.
6. View Personality as a Tool
Understand that personality is not just who you are, but a tool that can be shaped to help you achieve your goals and enhance your life.
7. Embrace Malleability of Traits
Recognize that even if you have a genetic predisposition towards certain traits, they are not fixed, and you have agency to influence and change them.
8. Commit to Recurring Social Activities
Sign up for groups, clubs, or activities that meet regularly with the same people and are difficult to back out of, to consistently build and deepen social connections.
9. Be Intentional in Social Planning
Proactively and intentionally set up social gatherings, even if it feels like a pain, to ensure you get enough social interaction in a busy world.
10. Engage Socially by Listening
If you’re an introvert with a quickly draining social battery, attend social events and listen more than you talk, as this still counts as a valuable form of social engagement.
11. Overcome Reciprocity Hang-ups
Don’t let perceived lack of reciprocity (e.g., always being the first to reach out) prevent you from initiating social contact, as many good friendships thrive this way.
12. Practice Most Generous Interpretation
When someone frustrates you or you question their motives, run the thought experiment of what the most generous interpretation of their actions might be, to foster understanding and reduce negative judgment.
13. Cultivate Compassion for Disagreement
Strive to understand and have compassion for those with differing views, even if you strongly disagree with their actions, without excusing harmful behavior or foregoing consequences.
14. Take Calculated Risks in Vulnerability
Occasionally take a risk to share something revelatory about yourself with others, as this can deepen relationships and build trust.
15. Implement Basic Organizational Tools
To boost conscientiousness, consistently use tools like Google Calendar, to-do lists, and establish routines such as leaving early or putting keys in the same spot.
16. Use Episodic Future Thinking
Visualize the specific positive outcome you desire (or negative outcome you want to avoid) for a task, including sensory details, to motivate yourself through tedious work and combat procrastination.
17. Engage in Micro-interactions
Initiate small conversations with people you encounter in your daily routine, such as baristas or librarians, as these brief interactions can measurably improve your well-being.
18. Use Statements for Small Talk
When initiating small talk, make a remark about something happening around you or to you that day, rather than asking a direct question, as it can be a more effective opener.
19. Seek Deep, Vulnerable Conversations
Prioritize and seek out people who are open to deep, unfiltered conversations over superficial small talk, to foster more meaningful and authentic connections.
20. Cultivate Diverse Friendships
Befriend people who are different from you (e.g., more agreeable or thoughtful), as they can teach you new perspectives and help you grow in areas you might not naturally consider.
21. Embrace Challenging, Playful Activities
Sign up for activities that push your comfort zone and involve an element of play or creativity, even if they initially feel like torture, as they can lead to personal growth and unexpected joy.
22. Start with Personality Assessment
Begin your personality change journey by taking a Big Five personality test (e.g., on personalityassessor.com) or by reflecting on areas in your life where you feel an upgrade is needed.
23. Focus on Manageable, Consistent Changes
Implement personality changes through small, manageable activities (e.g., gratitude journaling, short exercises, saying hello to someone) and prioritize doing them consistently over a long period.
24. Develop Personal Mantras
Create and use short, guiding phrases or mantras to recall during negative thought spirals, helping you to reframe situations and manage self-blame.
25. Integrate Mindful Parenting Moments
Utilize time spent with your baby or child, especially when not on your phone, as an opportunity for genuine present-moment awareness, observing them and your sensations as a form of meditation.
26. Explore Psychedelics (Controlled)
For increasing openness, studies suggest psychedelics can be effective; however, this should only be considered in a controlled, medically supervised environment with professional guidance.
6 Key Quotes
Personality is the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that come most instinctively or naturally to us.
Olga Khazan
Heritability isn't the same as malleability.
Carol Dweck (quoted by Olga Khazan)
I detected something that floored me. I was smiling wide without meaning to, something about the whole exercise, even though I didn't condone it logically or frankly comedically, was just so fun.
Olga Khazan
If you're an introvert and you feel that need for social connection, but you find that your social battery runs out really quickly, you could attend something and listen more than you talk. And that is still a form of extroversion that isn't quite so draining for introverts.
Sonia Lubomirsky (quoted by Olga Khazan)
All we can do is everything we can do.
David Axelrod (quoted by Dan Harris)
Action absorbs anxiety.
Tracy Dennis-Tawari (quoted by Dan Harris)
4 Protocols
Increasing Social Connections (Olga's Method)
Olga Khazan- Sign up for activities that recur regularly with the same group of people.
- Choose activities that are difficult to back out of once committed.
- Consider groups like improv, sailing clubs, or hiking meetups.
- For introverts, consider attending and listening more than talking to conserve social energy.
Setting Boundaries in Friendships
Miriam Kiramire (friendship expert, quoted by Olga Khazan)- Acknowledge the other person's feelings or concerns (e.g., 'I'm sorry you feel like I've been ignoring you').
- Clearly state your own limitations or preferences (e.g., 'I am honestly not a big texter').
- Propose alternative ways to maintain the connection (e.g., 'Is there another way that we can keep in touch?').
Boosting Conscientiousness
Olga Khazan- Create and regularly check a Google calendar or to-do list.
- Practice leaving 15 minutes early for appointments.
- Designate a consistent spot for important items like keys.
- Utilize 'episodic future thinking' by visualizing the desired positive or negative outcomes of tasks to motivate action.
Reducing Neuroticism Through Action
Tracy Dennis-Tawari (anxiety researcher, quoted by Olga Khazan)- Acknowledge anxious feelings when they arise.
- Make a to-do list of everything you're worried about.
- Outline specific actions you will take to address each concern.
- Once the list is made and actions are planned, put it away and try to disengage from dwelling on the anxieties (e.g., go back to sleep).
- Accept that at a certain point, you cannot control everything, focusing only on what you can do.