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Changing One's Personality
Crazy Larry
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So lately I've been on a self-improvement binge (read: trying to motivate myself to quit being lazy and do something with my life) and I've come to question just how realistic it is to expect to be able to force a change in one's personality. This isn't the first time one of these fits have hit me, and in the past it's also fizzled out and come to nothing. I'd say I'm not a markedly different person than I was five years ago, and if I am it's just from gradual changes over time, and not any conscious desire to change. My experiences with my friends has been similar. I see people who know they have self-destructive habits and try to change yet keep repeating the same mistakes. Granted, this is all anecdotal evidence, but I seem to recall the one psychology class I took reinforcing my beliefs in this regard.
So, a person's personality - set in stone, or can we willingly change?
So, a person's personality - set in stone, or can we willingly change?
Crazy Larry on
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Acting different does not make you different.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Then again I'm a self-destructive clod.
Habit is the most powerful force in day to day living.
Edit: This is Shinto.
1) Recognize your 'problems' or what you want to change
2) Try your best to figure out why you do those things in the first place
3) Just keep doing your darndest to understand yourself, not to improve yourself
4) If change is in the cards for you, and your environment is suitable for it, it may or may not come
There's really no magic, or way to force it. It's just about understanding, and changing subconscious habits to conscious ones-- from there, some things are not 'in your natural state', which is a load of bullshit to say that-- for whatever reason,
some of your habits or what-all you want to change may be less your personality and more a habit you developed in response to some fear, or something like that. That sort of stuff can change. Your actual personality, though?
I don't think you could want to change your personality, because it's who you are. Your personality is not just what makes you who you are, but defines what you enjoy and dislike. That's not shit you want to push against-- it's the stuff you want to embrace. Understanding what's integral to you and what is an environmental response is the first step towards realizing if it even can change without making you miserable and forcing you to live superconsciously.
3DS: 2852-6809-9411
The entire field of psychotherapy for mood and personality disorders disagrees with you. But, as noted, it takes a long time and lots of dedication. The process is to normalize (for you) things that previously were tough or bad, and to condition yourself to dislike things that previously seemed good to you.
It's definitely easiest when the old things had automatic bad consequences, like crimes where you were caught. Just saying, 'alright, I'll be X now', is a very hard thing to do.
Get up earlier, get more done, read more, meditate, walk more, change your grooming, fashion, etc. and you will feel different, and feeling different will change the way you interact with the world.
*This is Shinto.
That's true; breaking out of a sedentary period is the best way to get busy on everything you're going to do. I also find it refreshing.
* This is Shinto?
Edit: SPARTAAA
*This is Shinto
Edit: This is Shinto.
Also, I respect Glyph. He is the stone that the builder refused, he is the visual, the inspiration that makes ladies sing the blues.
Is there something important to you that being lazy interferes with?
Are you just responding to external pressure?
Happy Easter.
Edit: This is Jesus
Thinking differently does.
1) Determination
2) Lots of time
3) A complete unwillingness to accept defeat
Of course, this moulds your personality in addition to the things you are trying to change, giving you the traits of stubborness and patience. Hence, me.
p.s. Shinto rules the world. Shinto is the overlord. This is my unbiased opinion. Shinto is not standing behind me with a shotgun, making me type this.
Wow, I didn't know you could type that fast.
In terms of changing your habits the important thing is not to be too hard on yourself for failures along the way. Heaping mental abuse on yourself for failings might seem like you are being really determined and hardcore, but it isn't sustainable in the end. It just weakens you.
Accept the defeats, think through them to understand exactly why they happened then concentrate on the present. Don't live in the future or the past.
By refusing to accept the defeat I meant that you acknowledge any mistakes, bad things, etc which happen, then don't let them faze you. You perservere through whatever happens and whatever catastrophies happen.
BTW, that isn't really Shinto is it? Somebody's hijacked your account, just as you're hijacking mine...
There can be only one.
How would you propose that you force yourself to think differently?
Do you seriously suppose that the difference between the pessimist and the optimist is a matter of effort?
Well, the way I did it was to start analyzing things more deeply. Like, everything. Then I reached various conclusions which led to new attitudes which led to new behaviors. Lather, rinse, repeat. But I don't know how to make other people change their personalities, aside from brain-washing techniques. Of course, I'm not a cognitive behavioral-therapist or whatever, so of course I don't know that.
These changes can be both the dramatic "sudden revelation / paradigm shift" types or the more common and practical "change of lifestyle" types.
The former are usually kinda crappy, so aim for the latter.
Also:
Out of context, that seems potentially sigworthy.
People tend to think of a changing personality in terms of a flipped switch, like you would just "decide," for lack of a better term, to go from sad to happy, or introverted to extroverted. Any serious type of self-change takes time. Learning, forgetting, gaining or losing weight, every change we can do to ourselves takes time and either effort or a decided lack of effort.
So, the answer to your question, in a sense, is "yes." The difference between pessimism and optimism is a matter of effort, in that you can control to a limited degree how you think. Much like the difference between a healthy body and an unhealthy body is a matter of effort. There are certain factors outside your control, but there are also a large number of factors within your control, and the continual application of different events (exercise, positive thinking, therapy, practice, whatever) will, over a period of time, lead to a permanent change.
That's an interesting point. I usually find that I interact with people on a whole different set of rules when I'm keeping myself in good physical shape - so how much influence does chemical balance have on personality?
Potentially quite a bit. You can argue a sort of chicken <--> egg thing with some chemical and emotional responses, but there is a good amount of anecdotal and as-scientific-as-you-can-get evidence supporting certain environmental and biochemical factors controlling aspects of personality and emotion.
The best example might be the effect certain drugs have on individuals (particularly addicts) and the effect exercise has on almost anyone.
The difference over the years has done a great deal towards giving me an ability to function in the real world, whereas I was virtually paralyzed in human to human interraction in my younger days. The change is certainly not total, as I'm still fairly shy, but I can focus on badassitude enough to get over it when I really want to now. But I'm at least doing things like dancing with random women at a night club instead of huddling away reading RPG manuals without any people to play it with.
Suffice to say, however, my method leads to a bit of eccentricity, so it's more proof of possibility rather than "Here is what you should do."
They call me the man in black.
EVERYONE does.
Even the fucker who sold me my car.
--
Also: Pets. If you want to work on things like empathy, get pets. Cats especially. The amount of work they demand for their love is great for building empathy. Cats make your heart melt.
No, you learnt what your wife likes.
Edit: I'm Spartac... Uuuh! I mean, This is Shinto.
Fuck, beat'd by top of page barsteward.
Being able to curb jealousy, and replace it with empathy and joy, is fucking -nice-.