Personality Change is Possible

Have you ever taken an online personality quiz? What about a career aptitude test in high school or a strengths assessment at work (e.g., Myers Briggs Type Indicators)? These are examples of using personality tests to promote “staying in your lane.” But what if personality was not etched in stone? What if, instead of playing to your current strengths, you imagined the life you want and purposefully developed the characteristics you’d need to be successful?

If you’ve ever thought, “I can’t do [insert job or activity] because I’m not [insert personality characteristic] enough,” this post is for you.

Personality is your characteristic way of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Are you a person who tends to think about situations in your life more pessimistically, or are you a glass-half-full kind of person? Do you tend to get angry when someone cuts you off in traffic or are you more likely to give them the benefit of the doubt (e.g., “Maybe they’re late to pick up their kids”)? Do you wait until the last minute to complete tasks, or do you plan ahead?

You can think of personality as a label that summarizes how you think and behave. Depending on your answers, you might be labeled as optimistic, empathetic, or reliable. In other words, you are considered “reliable” if you think and behave “reliably.” And while it might seem hard to change personality, people change how they think, feel, and behave all the time. If you start to think “being on time shows others that I respect them,” feel pride when you arrive to brunch before your friends, and engage in new behaviors that increase your timeliness (e.g., getting up with an alarm, setting appointment reminders), you are embodying the characteristics of a reliable person. If you maintain these changes to your thinking, emotions, and behaviors over time—voila!—you are reliable.

Modern research confirms that personality is malleable. Across the population, personality changes in a healthier direction over time. In other words, as people age, they tend to experience fewer negative emotions and more positive ones, are more conscientious, place greater emphasis on positive relationships, and are less judgmental of others. Importantly, there is a lot of variability here—some people change a great deal and others remain relatively stable.

Is it possible to speed up these gradually unfolding positive changes? In my research conducting clinical trials to test the effect of cognitive behavioral therapy on personality traits, we find that meaningful, lasting change can occur over the course of just 12 weeks. Moreover, in a large meta-analysis (basically, a summary of all the studies done in this area) of clinical trials that included an assessment of personality, the Big Five traits changed significantly, with the greatest improvement occurring early in treatment (within eight weeks) and in response to cognitive behavioral therapy.

The good news is that cognitive-behavioral techniques are relatively simple, and they don’t necessarily require the help of a therapist. The first component involves changing your thinking patterns (this is the “cognitive” piece). You have to become aware of your thoughts to determine whether they’re keeping you stuck acting in line with a particular trait. For example, if you find yourself thinking that “people are only looking out for themselves,” you are likely to behave defensively around others. The behavioral component involves becoming aware of your current action tendencies and testing out new responses. If you are defensive around other people, they will probably respond negatively to you (e.g., withdrawing, snapping at you), confirming your belief that you can’t trust others. By contrast, if you try behaving more openly (perhaps sharing that you’re struggling with a task with a co-worker), you have the opportunity to see if that changes the way others act toward you. By taking small, manageable steps (i.e., changing your behavior) and shifting how you think about yourself (i.e., changing your thoughts), you can start an upward trajectory that ends in lasting personality change.

The first step is to identify a meaningful relationship, career, or personal life goal. For example, I hope to someday be in a leadership role at my university. Then, think about the traits or characteristics that make success more likely in this area. University leaders are often diplomatic and measured, whereas I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve and have a hard time keeping my opinions to myself in meetings. What is a small behavioral change you could make that would be more in line with the desired trait—something that would take you out of your comfort zone a little bit, but still feels manageable? For my goal, I might try holding my tongue during faculty meetings until at least three people have expressed their opinions. I might learn from that experience that other people may have the same concerns and I don't always have to be the one to go out on a limb. This is an example of small changes to my behavior and thoughts that, if maintained over time, can be the first step on the journey of personality change.