How to Improve Your Personality?
I recently met an old friend, Dr. Benjamin Hardy, organizational psychologist and author of Personality Isn't Permanent. Hardy is a 30-year-old father of five who is a very accomplished scientist, speaker, organizational psychologist, and author. He, nonetheless, has poor conversational skills.
Note: This article is by Cheryl Snapp Conner, CEO of Snapp Conner, a public relations agency.
During the five years I've known him, we've had great discussions on a number of topics, like habits, self-discipline, communication, and personality. Hardy differs from traditional experts. He confirms that our personalities are not fixed and shows through research that our lifestyles, choices, attitudes, and personality traits are subject to amazing transformation.
Do not believe personality tests
Hardy points to a recently published study of 1,208 14-year-olds in Scotland, in which teachers rated these students in the 1950s under six characteristics: self-confidence, perseverance, stability of mood, conscientiousness, honesty, and willingness to learn.
Sixty-three years later, the researchers re-tested 674 of the original participants. Each person, who is now in their seventies, classified themselves on the basis of the six characteristics and nominated a relative or a close friend to evaluate them as well, so the results showed that there was only very slight overlap.
According to Harvard psychologist Dr. Daniel Gilbert, our personalities change even over a ten-year period. In his own research, Gilbert asked people how their interests, goals, and values changed over the decade. In the past, they replied that the changes were vast, and then he asked about their expectations of changing their interests, goals, and values during the next ten years, so most of them expected a slight change.
“Human beings are wired to work constantly and have the mistaken belief that they get to a point where they stop changing,” Gilbert observed, and therein lies the problem, and Hardy agrees with him on that as well.
How can assuming your personality is fixed hold you back?
1. Tendency to prejudge others based on their past
When we meet someone we are considering hiring in our company or entering into a partnership with, for example, we usually ask questions about their previous experience while looking at their track record. We also ask about others who have worked with them before. Shakespeare says, “The past is an introduction.” Accordingly, we suppose that their previous behavior indicates that their previous weaknesses must inevitably come back to hinder them.
Of course, their past actions are data that can be drawn on and are potentially very important, but what if we have to test and evaluate a person based on current situations or hypothetical decisions that they will make in the future? If you ask about a past experience, for example, ask what they did and why in one of the most difficult situations and what they would do now if they had the chance to do it again.
Listen to understand their attitude, why they were intransigent, and the thought or feeling process that guides their decisions today. Emotional maturity and emotional intelligence determine a person's resilience and willingness to learn and evolve or whether they are likely to be mired in previous habits and only care about themselves.
2. Assuming it is unlikely to change
Many years ago, my ex-business partner was told by consultants that working with him was very difficult and company employees were intimidating at him, but he didn't care and said, "I'm in my 40s, so I'm not likely to change." I don't know his current personality because that was 25 years ago, but years after I left, the company he led, despite some successes, continued to focus on symbiotic relationships.
As a stress-free outside observer, a part of me felt happy. It has been proven that success does not require companies to follow a single model or a specific formula to be their ally, but rather a desire for improvement or flexibility towards positive changes. What are the available opportunities, then?
When we assume that we are unable or not daring to change, we are more or less guaranteed that preventing traumatic events such as poor health or the breakup of a marriage will not change us. Unfortunately, this also means that the addictions and bad habits that control us remain very much the same.
You can change any habit or addiction in a flash
Hardy goes into great detail on the principle of addiction; this is a very important element within the subject he teaches, and I also learned this principle from listening to businessman Tony Robbins, who stresses the need for three conditions to successfully end stubborn addiction:
1. Cravings to end the addiction
This means that the person has the intention to get rid of the addiction they are living in.
2. A traumatic or significant experience that indicates the need for change
Habits change, like a smoker who decides to give up cigarettes so he won't be deprived of seeing the girl he loves become his beautiful bride or a heart attack survivor who decides to stick to a healthy diet and exercise.
3. The ability to replace a less awful habit with the one you are trying to break
This theory has been tested and proven, and for more than two decades, I suffered from a soda addiction so badly that it was the subject of constant banter among my friends. In the extremes of this habit, I could not function without drinking at least six bottles a day. I worked so hard to quit and even managed to go without drinking for an entire six months at once until hard pressure pushed me back.
Later in my life, I realized how often I got sick from plane travel, lack of sleep, and contact with people with colds. I took an immune-boosting herbal supplement, and the friend who gave me the supplement had warned me about side effects such as rashes in people who were a little older or had a poor diet, and since I wasn't one of them, I thought I'd be fine.
A week later, I woke up with a rash all over my body. I felt horrible itching all over my body and my scalp. I immediately knew it was due to the huge amount of chemical toxins in the soft drinks because I had an excellent diet. That's how rash became the alarm bell that kept me from doing anything harmful to my health or body again.
Who would you be in the future? Make your decision today
Hardy points out that each of us has the power to change ingrained beliefs and traits with constant effort, as desired. For example, in his book, he talks about a 13-year-old girl who has her teacher’s words inscribed in her memory. This teacher assured his students that they could do anything and be whoever they wanted to be if they had a deep desire to grow and change.
She took his words seriously when she thought of her shyness to speak to or get to know anyone new, and from that time on, she began to change her temper, talking to others and forcing herself to be strongly present in her personality and voice from that moment on. By the time she graduated from high school, she had a completely different personality as a result of her own desire and determination.
Hardy says his wife nearly dumped him as a result of his ex. After his parents separated, he spent much of his childhood and youth as a wanderer. He had no goals or ambitions and was a frequent truant from high school. This put his testimony on the line, but he underwent a spiritual experience for two years that turned his balance and set him on a path of discipline and determination that has influenced his path and accomplishments ever since.
For me, a bad experience with a personality test contributed to my decision to leave the first company I co-founded. It was in the mid-1980s when the Myers-Briggs Type Test was just beginning to become popular. The COO suggested I and the other tough-as-nails founder take the test.
Here was the shock: our personalities turned out to be opposites, he said while he was surveying my results: "No, that can't be true; you are not a dreamer nor do you have a fertile imagination; take the test again, and as a matter of fact, I will make sure that no one enters with these characteristics. This pattern does not work in our company at all."
I was distraught; the test was 100% correct, but it seemed clear that no one in this company would like these abilities and they might not even be allowed. I tried to move on, but in two years I could no longer bear burnout, and I made the difficult choice to leave the company.
I was a co-founder and so far I have founded 3 companies, I create software regularly and find my strengths in creating new solutions, even sometimes while traveling and no matter how bad the weather is, I still work long hours. I consider myself an achiever for I am at liberty to develop as I please. Leaving my company has caused me great sadness, but things have changed for the better. I and those around me gained scope to develop new strengths.
Hardy stresses the dangers of taking personality tests seriously, and in assessing our inclinations, he advises giving more credence to software such as the Enneagram that identifies inclinations within a set of characteristics rather than relying on colors or letters according to the Myers-Briggs test, and he'd rather not be tested at all.
I recently took the Myers-Briggs test, and I was curious and thought I had made great progress in the 25 years since the fateful test. I was rated introverted, and the only tangible difference in my score from 25 years ago was that introverted tendencies that I had considered less prevalent became more prevalent.
By many measures, I am now a business leader. No matter the outcome, I can confirm then and now that I am still a dreamer who lives in a fantasy. All these years later, the scenario that so terrified me gave me a different outcome: If I didn't step up, I would lose so much. Now that I recall that fateful experience, my feelings shift from fear to gratitude.
In the end, may you find a job that suits your personality in the future, succeed in your work, and maintain your success. Your personality and choices will change, so do not try to prevent this change.