The science of redesigning your personality

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For years, Olga Khazan, a Virginia-based unit writer astatine The Atlantic, knew she had a large problem: she hated overmuch of her ain personality. "I was perpetually disquieted astir everything," she said. "Just ne'er surviving successful the moment. And I didn't truly similar doing thing amusive with different people. Just wasn't my thing."

How mightiness she relation astatine a party? "I would benignant of basal disconnected to myself, and honestly, sometimes just, like, work articles connected my telephone oregon conscionable fundamentally not engage," she laughed.

Not surprisingly, a batch of folks didn't privation to prosecute with Khazan, either. "One idiosyncratic called maine a unit addict, that I was benignant of obsessed with working, and conscionable doing arsenic overmuch enactment arsenic possible, and ne'er taking a infinitesimal to admit life," she said. "One idiosyncratic told maine that she was benignant of acrophobic of maine erstwhile we worked together."

Predictably, erstwhile she took a property trial 4 years ago, she was disconnected the charts – mode disconnected – successful neuroticism, oregon antagonistic emotions … not that she hadn't tried to find help: "This full clip I'd been successful therapy," Khazan said. "I had taken antithetic medications. I did yoga. And I did each the self-care things. Nothing was genuinely working."

Frustrated, Khazan acceptable retired to bash thing overmuch much radical: She vowed to redesign her full personality. "I decided to walk a twelvemonth trying to alteration my property traits," she laughed.

Professor Shannon Sauer-Zavala described one's property arsenic "your diagnostic mode of thinking, feeling, and behaving. It's however you deliberation astir your behaviour and however you act."

I asked, "I ever assumed that erstwhile you had reached a definite age, your property was your personality?"

"That truly is, I think, the prevailing mode to deliberation astir personality, but it doesn't enactment up with our science," Sauer-Zavala replied.

Personality subject is her specialty, and her probe astatine the University of Kentucky could beryllium a game-changer for however we attack intelligence wellness issues. She says information tells america it is possible to scientifically alteration your personality, and that, with the close intervention, introverts tin go extroverts … sloppy radical tin get neater … slackers tin summation ambition … and anxious radical tin larn to beryllium calm. "In my astir 20 years of treating radical with anxiousness disorders, I've seen melodramatic changes successful 12, 16, 20 weeks," Sauer-Zavala said.

Step 1 is simply a baseline property test, which asks questions specified as: "I sometimes manipulate radical into doing what I want."

The adjacent measurement is forcing yourself to enactment the other of however you usually would. If you're shy, marque conversations. If you're messy, marque the bed.

Sauer-Zavala said, "When we marque intentional changes to our thinking, our feeling, and our behaviors, and we support those changes implicit time, past we're fundamentally shifting our personality. We're changing the mode we're gonna capable retired those bubbles connected the property questionnaire."

"So, you consciously follow the behaviour of the property that you deliberation you want?" I asked. "You marque it dependable easy."

"It's not easy," Sauer-Zavala replied. "The principles are simple, but the execution is difficult."

It wasn't casual for Olga Khazan, the lifelong introvert. Among different strategies to tackle her societal anxiety, she enrolled successful an improv people with full strangers … thing wholly extracurricular her comfortableness zone. "I was very, precise scared," she said. "Probably for the archetypal 3 oregon 4 months that I did it, my bosom was truly beating successful my chest, and I was profoundly uncomfortable."

What astir it frightened her? "I didn't similar looking silly!" she laughed.

Murphy McHugh, who was Khazan's improv teacher, said, "For me, doing improv was a life-changing thing. I opened up socially. I became a amended listener, a amended collaborator."

He said arsenic Khazan continued coming to class, helium noticed changes successful her: "Relaxing, a small spot little of the cross-armed assemblage language. You spot idiosyncratic relaxed, you spot their shoulders drop. You spot them laughing, and coming into scenes with an idea."

Along with improv, Khazan meditated, went sailing, took speech classes, and kept a journal, arsenic she describes successful a caller book, "Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change."

"Journaling benignant of helps you absorption connected immoderate of the much affirmative elements of your beingness that, if you're precise neurotic, you thin to benignant of gloss implicit oregon forget," she said.

I asked, "Is this a lawsuit of fake it 'til you marque it?"

"Yeah, it is fake it 'til you marque it," Khazan said. "Because if you deliberation astir it, thing is gonna consciousness fake if it feels new, right? Anything that you're not accustomed to doing is gonna consciousness truly unnatural. But the lone mode to marque it earthy is to bash it implicit and implicit and implicit again"

"And conscionable incorporated it successful who you are?"

"Exactly."

Today, Khazan is happily married, with a 14-month-old baby. As for that property she erstwhile truthful disliked, she said, "I consciousness similar I americium a antithetic idiosyncratic contiguous than I was 3 years ago. I deliberation I genuinely person a antithetic mode of surviving my life, and approaching problems, than I did before."

So, what proposal does Shannon Sauer-Zavala person for everyone watching with wholly unsatisfactory personalities? "Not to get stuck successful a personality-type box," she said. "Think astir the beingness that you privation to have, and past cognize that you tin intentionally make the traits that volition facilitate that travel for you."

READ AN EXCERPT: "Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change"

For much info:

"Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change" by Olga Khazan (S&S/Simon Element), successful Hardcover, eBook and Audio formats, disposable via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org
Olga Khazan, The Atlantic
Shannon Sauer-Zavala, subordinate professor, Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky
DC Arts Center

Story produced by Amiel Weisfogel. Editor: Ed Givnish.

See also:

Introverts and the making of a "Quiet Revolution" ("Sunday Morning")

Mental Health

Susan Spencer

Susan Spencer is simply a contributor to "CBS News Sunday Morning," wherever she reports connected a wide scope of topics for America's No. 1 Sunday greeting quality program.

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