You Have It In You

How personality change can help you achieve the things you thought you couldn't

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

ME, BUT BETTER, my book about personality change, is out now. If you haven’t yet, please pick up your copy today. And if you’ve read the book, it would mean the world to me if you could leave an Amazon review. Thank you!

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The more I talk about my book, the more I think “You Have It in You” could have been an alternate title for it. (Though I still think Me, But Better is, well, better :)

Allow me to explain: The number one question I get in interviews is “why would someone want to change their personality?”

Fair!

A few reasons:

1. It’ll make you happier, as being lower in neuroticism (one personality trait) and higher in extroversion (another personality trait) tends to do

2. It could make you better at your job and help you live longer

3. A lot of stuff that doesn’t seem like it has anything to do with personality—not exercising enough, drinking too much, stressing out over dumb stuff, or having conflicts with the people in your life—actually are elements of personality.(Conscientiousness, conscientiousness again, neuroticism, and agreeableness, to be exact.) Personality isn’t just your preferences and the types of jokes you tell; it determines much of your life.

But I think a less-obviously reason is that life is, eventually, going to demand something of you that you previously didn’t feel equipped for. Personality change can help you rise to the occasion when you start to require skills you didn’t need before.

Imagine that you are going through the world as a hardcore introvert. You’re happy in your reticent little way; you make stuff out of yarn and watch movies and have plenty of alone time and drink tea and all that. (I sympathize with this tendency because I used to be this way 100% of the time and now am just this way most of the time.)

And you’ve chosen a job that aligns pretty well with your introverted preferences: Maybe it’s one of those “remote jobs with no talking” that we’re always hearing about on TikTok. Maybe it’s just a job that doesn’t require a ton of in-person interaction, or that doesn’t call for you to take on any kind of leadership role or to do any public speaking.

BUT THEN, a big promotion becomes available at your company, and it’s for a job as a manager. This person would still be doing much of the kind of work you do—the kind without a lot of talking—but in addition, they’d occasionally have to give presentations to groups of managers and to other teams. They’d also have to travel around to other cities sometimes, meet new clients, and tell them about your company’s work.

Now, here’s a dilemma: You’re an introvert, but this job is going to require a lot of extroversion. “Taking charge and leading others,” or assertiveness, is literally one of the facets of extroversion. And you might be an introvert, but you’re still a person living under capitalism. And boy do you need that promotion money.

So what do you do? Do you stick to your “true” personality as an introvert, and pass up the job, or do you try to build up your extroversion—or at least this facet of extroversion—and go for it?

To me, it would seem reasonable at such a juncture to try to expand the ways you interact with the world—that is, to at least see if you can occasionally act more extroverted. You can still be an introvert most of the time, but when it comes to this job, you “try on” extroversion like an invisibility cloak. (Visibility cloak?) You figure out how to sound more confident in meetings. You pick up some tips on public speaking. You learn how to give subordinates feedback in a kind but clear way. That’s personality change!

Just because you’re not always acting how you’d naturally want to act doesn’t make you a hypocrite or a faker—it means you can adapt to new situations. You can build on the strengths you already have in order to develop the new skills you need.

Life throws lots of experiences at us in which we’re asked to do something we don’t quite know how to do. Many new parents weren’t “naturally” cooey and cuddly before they had their kids—they learned how to do that for their babies’ benefit. Many people feel they’re “not ready for a relationship” until they meet the one person they really do want to commit to. You learn how to be a good parent, or a good partner, over time, by nurturing personality traits that weren’t always evident.

People often say “I don’t have it in me” when they are faced with some task that feels undoable. (And, sure, you probably shouldn’t do anything that your gut is screaming at you not to do, at least not permanently). But for obstacles that are more like challenges, that could lead to good things, in all likelihood you do have it in you—there are elements of that trait inside you that you can grow into new traits and abilities.

You can become organized. You can give speeches. You can make new friends in that city you just moved to. You don’t have to have done it before. It doesn’t have to come “naturally.” You just have to realize that you’re someone who can do new things.

You don’t even have to believe it—though that probably doesn’t hurt.