Olga Khazan
Appearances
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
Yeah, so about half of it is genetic. So it comes from your genes. Thank you, mom and dad. So you're not going to be exactly like your mom and dad, but your personality is going to be influenced by the genes that they pass on to you, just like they influence how tall you are, your eye color, things like that. So part of it, you're kind of, is just there.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
But another part of it is kind of hard to define and they still don't know exactly what makes it up, but it's sort of just the environment. So it's who your friends are, what your life experiences are. Do you go to college? What kind of job do you have? Do you get married? Do you have kids?
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
All of those kind of environmental factors and experiences contribute to that other part of your personality that isn't really genetic. It's sort of up to you.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
That's true, yeah. So like you could see variations on that cycle in like who goes to college, right? So it's usually people who are more open to experiences and then they're around a bunch of other people like them. And they're around a bunch of professors who are also open to experiences. And so they become even more open to experiences in the process.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
So your personality leads you into certain situations and then those situations further affect your personality.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
So I think that it depends on the scale of what you're trying to do. If you're just trying to become a little bit more conscientious or a little bit more extroverted, I think that it's definitely something that if you put your mind to it, it can pretty easily be done. Some of the traits like neuroticism and agreeableness are a little bit harder to change. So I think that one would be more
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
require a lot more kind of like inner work and a little bit more struggle to actually become permanently different on. But yeah, I think it is doable for everyone, but it does require new habits and new ways of thinking about yourself. So if you're not ready for those, then I imagine it would be hard. Oh, and as far as, sorry, as far as how long,
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
the changes last the studies that have been done suggest that they last for a few months but that's because uh we don't have longer term studies and whether like what happens to those people after a few months we we don't know i did talk to one person who had a pretty radical personality change that he has now kept up for a few years um kind of across all the personality traits
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
And a few other people I talked to were able to change, you know, just one or two traits for a few years.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
Oh, absolutely. I mean, yeah. And Sonia Lubomirsky, one of the researchers that I talked to, explained this, which is that, you know, a lot of times things don't feel very natural at first because we're not very good at them. And she actually used the example of becoming a runner where she now runs pretty regularly, but
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
it was kind of hard for her at first to commit to doing it and to do it regularly. But once you are kind of doing something more and more, you become more familiar with it and it becomes less intimidating and less scary in a way. So, I mean, in that way, yeah, it does become easier just because like, you know what to do in a room full of strangers now.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
I've actually come across both. There was a sort of a book about people being inspired to basically change completely called Quantum Change. And that one was like a mix of out of the blue, plus like near death experiences, plus like voice of God type thing. But some of the people I talked to from my book, it was just sort of like,
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
I got tired of drinking so much or, you know, I got tired of being so disorganized or, you know, one more person made a comment about how I'm always late and I decided I didn't like it. So it really depends. It's sometimes like it's a realization that someone else points out to you and sometimes it's something that comes from within yourself.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
Yes, people who did change their personality traits in the desired direction tend to be happy with the results. So, you know, you might be surprised by how good it feels to act against your nature sometimes.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
Hi. Thanks so much for having me.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
Yeah, that's one theory, and that was a prominent theory about personality several decades ago. William James famously said it was set like plaster by the age of 30. But actually, newer research has shown that it is possible to change your personality. You do have to really work at it. It's not just something you can snap your fingers and make happen.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
But researchers who have asked people if they would like to change their personality traits and then given them little assignments or tasks or behaviors to do every day that would put them closer in alignment with the personality trait they'd like to have, they then found that those people actually did change their personality traits.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
Yes. People who did change their personality traits in the desired direction tend to be happy with the results.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
So personality, according to most researchers, is sort of the thoughts and behaviors and mindset that come most reflexively to you. They're the things that you kind of do automatically without thinking about it. Now, Nathan Hudson, who is one of the researchers, he kind of adds onto that by saying that personality is like a tool that helps you get what you want.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
there's five traits of personality. And for example, the trait of agreeableness, which is sort of like warmth and empathy, that can help you make more friends. It can help you deepen your relationships. It can help you become more enmeshed in community. And so that is actually, you can think of it as almost like a tool in your toolkit for living the kind of life you'd like to live.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
Absolutely. You can remember them with the acronym OCEAN. So O for openness to experiences. This is sort of like imaginativeness and creativity. Then C for conscientiousness. This is being organized and on time, meeting deadlines, not being messy, not forgetting things, things like that. E for extroversion. We all know extroverts, they love to socialize and talk to people. They're cheerful.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
They like to go and do activities. A for agreeableness, which I just mentioned, which is sort of like warmth and empathy and trust in others. And then N is a little funny. It's for neuroticism, which is a bad thing. It's associated with anxiety and depression. So the others are positive. Neuroticism is a negative thing.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
The flip side of neuroticism is called emotional stability, and that's the one that you want to be.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
Yeah, that's the personality trait of conscientiousness.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
You know, the reason why people are sometimes resistant to change on these traits is that personality can have a little bit of an identity component. So if you see yourself as an introvert, it can be really hard to give that up. You know, it's almost like changing your name or something like that.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
Yeah, and sometimes it's about not knowing what actions to take. So particularly in the case of conscientiousness, that can be a really tough one where people want to be on the other side of it, right? They want to be organized. They want to be proactive. It can be really hard to see how to get there from where you are.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
And so a lot of the people that I talked to for that chapter, you know, they were like, I'm going to start a business. And then they just kind of sat around watching TV because they weren't really conscientious to begin with and they weren't really sure how to make themselves conscientious.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
What you do about that is make systems and habits that you set up that you do every single day, even if you don't feel like it. One good example of this is extroversion, which is a trait that I was working to increase. I wanted to become more extroverted and get out and have more social connections and just socialize more, not be so isolated. In the beginning, I really did not want to do this.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
I found it really hard to get myself out of the house and to actually talking to people. So what I did is I signed up for things that I could not back out of. I signed up for an improv class where you could only miss two classes and still kind of complete the course.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
So even when I really did not feel like going, and most of the time I did not, I had to go because otherwise I would lose my money on signing up for this class. So I would really recommend that to anyone who wants to change their personality but finds it difficult is to sign up for things that you can't back out of.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
you might feel that way. I mean, if you're really, really far on the introversion scale, you might feel that way and just think like that Olga woman was wrong. But I will say that in lab experiments, when they have introverts go out and act like extroverts, which usually just means socializing for a few minutes, they actually say that they felt better afterward.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
Like they had a little mood boost from behaving like an extrovert for a little while. And they also said they felt truer to themselves when they were behaving like extroverts, which suggests that it's not really that important to act exactly in accordance with what you think your personality is all the time. Now, one thing that some researchers say is that let's say you are doing this.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
Let's say you're really introverted, but you're pushing yourself. You're going out and giving a bunch of sales presentations because you want to meet your sales goals.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
it might be necessary to then have kind of a restorative niche or a restorative period after each of these presentations where you go back to the hotel room and you read your book and take your bubble bath and have your introvert time. That still counts. That's still personality change as long as you're pushing yourself and you're kind of expanding those boundaries.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
Yeah, it was exhausting, and it was great. I think after basically the first class, I was driving away from the class, and I was smiling. I noticed myself smiling and kind of giggling to myself because I had fun, even though I didn't expect that I would have fun. And I kind of had this elevated mood
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
throughout the night just from, you know, being around other people and being in this situation where I was just kind of being silly. So, you know, you might be surprised by how good it feels to act against your nature sometimes.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
Yeah, exactly. And one of the studies that I write about the personality change studies is called you have to follow through. It's really not enough to just wish that you were different. You really do have to kind of do something every day that accords with your quote unquote new personality.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
So the person who was trying to start a business, who I was talking about earlier, who kind of didn't know where to start, she honestly started by buying a giant whiteboard and writing everything down on it and hanging it in front of her desk. So she would write down all of her appointments Everything she needed to get done, you know, the time she needed to get it done by, positive affirmations.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
Like if it was important, it went on this whiteboard. And that actually worked for her, just having everything in front of her in one place like that. And I really think that variations of that can work for all of the traits and can work for everyone. But you do have to kind of experiment a little to see what will work for you.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
I would say both are true. You are a little bit different 80 years later, even if you don't try to become different, but there's still a little piece of you that's gonna be quite similar, right? So if you were a very introverted, anxious child, you're probably gonna be a little bit introverted and anxious as an adult as well.
Something You Should Know
The Science of Changing Your Personality & What Really Happens to Your Trash
But the studies that have followed people across decades have found that most people change across at least one personality trait over the course of their lives. And in general, just something to look forward to, people tend to become less neurotic and more conscientious as they get older. And that's not through life hacks or doing anything in particular. That just kind of naturally happens.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Yeah. So there's two kind of branches of evidence to the contrary. So first, your frontal lobe being fully formed doesn't really mean anything about your personality because we don't have like a lobe in our brain that is where the personality lives. So like even if they study like brain changes or, you know, like those like fMRI studies where it's like brains lighting up
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Those don't necessarily correlate perfectly with personality necessarily. So there's kind of two elements to this. The first is that when researchers have followed people, you know, and given them personality tests over and over across the years, they do find that people change. You know, they tend to change in certain ways. ways over time.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
So like you mentioned that people become kind of mentally healthier in old age. Neuroticism does go down naturally across your life. So if you feel like you're very anxious and depressed, usually in older age, people become less so. So that sort of just naturally happens. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to like take any Lexapro. That naturally happens for most people.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
The other element of this is that if you actually try to change, it can happen even faster. So there's been studies that show that people who get therapy, for example, become less neurotic. And in a short period of time, they become a lot less neurotic than you would expect them to having just like naturally, you know, decline in neuroticism.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
And the same with some of the studies that I cover in my book. Researchers who have given people these like challenges, you know, people will say, I'd really like to become more extroverted. I'd like to make more friends. And they're like, okay, every day for – or whatever, every week for a month, reach out to someone new and have coffee with them or have –
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
you know, lunch with them or whatever, and they do maybe like five to ten challenges like that over a period of time, they actually find that they do grow in extroversion based on personality tests that they take at the beginning and the end. So not only do you naturally change, you can also change through effort.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Yeah. So it's both. So genetics is responsible for about 40 to 60% of our personality. And even then it's not like direct. Like if you think about either of your parents, you're probably not exactly like either of them, right? You're probably like you have like elements of them, but you're not like they're twin.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Like you kind of, most people are, I mean, usually people are relieved to hear this, like not exactly like either parent, right? So you get a little bit, like you get some ingredients. So I have like a natural proclivity toward anxiety because both my parents are very anxious, right?
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
But at the same time, there's other, there's like this, you know, 40 to 60 other percent of personality that we don't really know where specifically it comes from. It's not necessarily like the way your parents raised you. It's like, it's like kind of that, but it's also like your friends. It's like, did you go to college? What kind of job do you have?
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
You know, do you make an effort to like read self-help books? It's kind of like the stuff that you do and absorb into yourself. that creates that other part of personality. So that's the kind of element that I'm talking about is that like, yeah, if you have two parents who are totally bookish and hate talking to people, you're going to naturally be kind of like, I feel really introverted.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
But if you, you know, go into a job in sales and you talk to people, you know, all day and everyone around you is extroverted and you get like high fives and promotions for being extroverted like you're gonna be a little bit more extroverted than you naturally would be if that makes sense so it's kind of like at some point reinforcement does kind of work like
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Yeah. So, um, that's like the whole book. So, um, let me just break it down into, let's talk about extraversion first. Cause I think that is like the easiest to wrap your head around and also has had the clearest results. Um, so, um, extraversion, basically the secret to increasing extraversion is to socialize with people. Some of the other traits are more existential and more like mindset
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
oriented and kind of like how you think about things um extraversion is like very clear-cut go talk to people like go do activities um so I signed up for a bunch of stuff I signed up for improv um sailing club uh a bunch of meetup groups um so which is like groups of strangers meeting up literally I like threw a party at my house. I just went out all the time.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
I went from basically going out maybe once a week to going out like pretty much every night or like not and not like going out drinking, like although there was a lot of drinking. I can imagine. Like just being around people. And I found that like almost every time before I went, I dreaded it. I did not want to go. I was like, I hate improv. I don't even know why I'm doing this. This is stupid.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Like, I don't want to go. And then almost every time after I would do it, I felt better. I was like, that was super fun. Or like, that person in the sailing, my sailboat today was really interesting. Or like, that was cool. Or like, hey, like I... got to get whatever, a burger on the way back home.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Like there was something that came out of it usually that I was like, huh, that was like a nice break from the day. That was like a nice way to like liven up the day a little bit. And I think that's kind of like the, when I talk about increasing extroversion or like changing your introversion, you can remain an introvert, but just do like 20% more stuff, like connect with people 20% more.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
And there's a little bit of a mood boost there. Like researchers who are introverts have studied this concept and have found that like even just connecting with people a little bit, and it doesn't mean that you have to be like the life of the party. Like I think people assume extroversion means like
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
you're super talkative and like can't shut up and, you know, or you're always telling jokes, you can like go hang out with two close friends and like, you know, listen more than you talk and like knit the whole time. And that's still extroversion. That's, you know, still being around people. So yeah, for that one, my extroversion did go up. And I think what I took away from that is that like,
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
I do enjoy having fun. I need to sometimes force myself to have fun. But it's okay to do that. It's okay to commit to an exercise class or to something else that doesn't sound super appealing all the time but ends up being rewarding.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Yeah. So neuroticism, I also saw an improvement. So neuroticism, I will cut to the chase. I meditated a whole lot. And meditation is also something that I did not enjoy. I didn't even enjoy it while I was doing it. And I did not enjoy it after I was done. I was not like, that was really nice. That sounds painful. Thank God I don't have to do that for another 24 hours.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
I signed up for a class where we had to meditate for 45 minutes every day, which is so long. It's literally the longest 45 minutes of your life. However, it did work. My neuroticism went down and my anxiety went down a little bit, but my depression went down a ton.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
um it went down a lot like to basically like not being depressed anymore um and why that happened is sort of anyone's guess um if i had to like posit why that occurred it's that um i did a lot of what's called loving kindness meditation which is where you're just like really nice to yourself um for however long and it's usually i do it to like a guided like a tape basically
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
people don't use tape anymore, like a recording, like a guided. Yeah, exactly. Like a guided recording. And it's like, you know, like, like there's like the line that always makes me cry is like, there's, you can search the whole universe for someone who is more deserving of love and happiness than you are yourself and not find anyone. And it's like, like, you're like,
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
And you're just like, oh, my God. You need to know what this tape is. So it's Sharon Salzberg. And I use the 10% Happier app for meditation.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Sure. My name is Olga Hazan, and I'm a staff writer at The Atlantic magazine. And I'm also an author of books. This is my second book. And it is actually kind of stems from a cover story I did for The Atlantic a few years ago. So that's that's my backstory.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
No. I think you're thinking of Judd Brewer. The 10% happier is Dan Harris.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Yes. Yeah. I mean, everyone has a podcast. Yeah. Oh, my God.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
It's so embarrassing. But he, yeah. But it actually, like, really worked. I think, like, there's something about, like, repeating that. I don't know. And my meditation teacher also really tried to, like,
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
I think what it did is made me less afraid of my negative emotions. So you're sitting there like sometimes for hours and you're just like your mind is like going and going and it's silence, you know? And I think what it does is like, for me at least, I don't know if this is like correct, but for me at least, it made me like inevitably like negative feelings will come up during that.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
But it was sort of just like, It's okay. Like nothing bad is really happening right now. You're literally sitting in a room in your house on a cushion, like meditating. But you kind of have – you still have your same negative, you know, strong emotions if you're someone who's prone to neuroticism. But it – I don't know. It just lets you like –
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
kind of not be as thrown off by them or like, because bad things are still, I mean, my meditation teacher would say this all the time, like things happen that you don't like, which is like very simple, but it's like, oh yeah. And like, you're just, you're gonna have to deal with that for the rest of your life. And it's all about,
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
you know, do you, you know, your mom, you mentioned is like, so not neurotic. I'm sure bad things happen to her, but she thinks about them in a, like somehow more Zen way than the average person. I'd love to know her secret.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Um, I honestly only had a year of book leave. So it was just like June of 2022 to June of 2023. Okay, cool.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
So in some ways, but not in others. Since I did that, I had a baby. And that necessarily like changes a lot. about how you're thinking about things um especially in the beginning but i would say that there are still a lot of things that i carried through into even my life as a i guess i'm still a new parent technically um so one example is like just reaching out to other moms um so it's a very um
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Yeah, I can give you a spoiler. So the cover story, I kind of experimented very lightly with changing my personality. But then I kind of realized that I needed to do more. And kind of letting up on the experiment, I backtracked. I noticed that I was sort of falling back into old patterns. So the book is really an overview of the five traits of personality
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
stressful time when you first have a baby. Like it just is. There's no getting around it. You don't know what you're doing and they're very tiny and they cannot speak to you. And so you're just like, what do you want? So I kind of made a point of reaching out to other moms and like I'm in a mom's group that's been really supportive. I also just like
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Really, really try to even in day to day life, if I meet another mom with kids the same age, I really try to like reach out and at least see if she's open to the possibility of friendship. And sometimes that means that I and this is not something I would have done previously. I actually do a lot of reaching out. repeatedly.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
So like if someone let's say I reach out to someone and they're like, yeah, let's have coffee and we have coffee and we both have a good time. I and then some time elapses and no one follows up. I might reach out again, even though it was me the last time too. And then I might do that like a third time. Like there are some relationships where I'm just always the person who
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
organizes things and that used to really bother me like I was like that person doesn't want to be friends like I'm going to move on because they're not putting in equal effort into organizing things and like I don't I don't want that but I kind of just realized through this that like everyone has stuff going on and like People just don't think about things the same way.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
They are maybe swamped in other ways. They're maybe not as comfortable with reaching out. I don't know. It just made me a lot less sensitive, I guess, about these rules of social interaction that I had previously thought were like iron like laws, you know? So that's been one thing that I've noticed.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Like yesterday we went on a play date to this woman who I like barely knew just because I was like, I'm really bored. And if I have to like sing Baby Beluga one more time, I'm going to lose my mind. So I was like, let's go over to Yuchen's house. And yeah, that's what we did. And it was great, you know? So I don't know.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
I know. I'm not very competent or capable as it is. But I will say that I think that doing this experiment helped me decide to have a baby.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Like it helped me get more comfortable with the idea of having a baby. Yeah.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Like you end up, you end up Googling. Don't worry about that stuff. Don't, don't worry about it right now. It's honestly, you will, you will be Googling. You will Google. The internet has answers. You Google everything. No one knows any of this stuff before they start.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
My advice for people in their 20s is that it's okay to just pursue what you want. You don't have to do something that seems practical or like what other people want you to do or just because you've always been doing it. It's a time of life when you can completely pick the thing that is your biggest goal, the thing you most want in the world, and just go at it with full force.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
My personal attempts to change on three of them and because the other two, I actually don't need to change. They're fine. They're very high in me as it is. But I do interview other people who increased on those traits through various methods.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Yeah. So our website is theatlantic.com. And I'm a writer there. You can find me and all my brilliant colleagues there. And you can find my book, which is called Me But Better, wherever books are sold.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Sure. Yeah. Wow. That's a long time ago. Yeah.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Graduated from high school like 20 years ago. Then I went to college, did not major in journalism, but I Really found myself drawn to journalism. I did an internship in journalism. And then I went to graduate school after I graduated from college, which is not like a necessary step for anyone listening at home, but it is something that I did.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Then I got a job at the Washington Post out of graduate school, and I worked there for a brief time. And then I moved to the Atlantic in 2013. And I've worked at the Atlantic ever since. And I've done a couple of different jobs there, but I've mostly been a writer covering like health and human behavior.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
yeah um that probably was so when i did my internship in college i wrote one story um during that internship it was complex why i only wrote one but that that was like the amount that i was allowed to write um and it was about online gaming addiction um and uh i remember when it came out i felt so just accomplished like i was like yes like my life is all coming together and of course like
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
I wouldn't be a full-time writer for, I think, eight years after that. But it was, it was like very good motivation to keep going.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Yeah. So your personality, you know, a lot of people think it's sort of like what you like or dislike or sort of the kinds of things you say or whatever. But it's really a lot about your reactions to situations and kind of like something comes across your way. And are you like, yes, let's do it. Or are you like, oh, I don't know about that.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Or, you know, it's kind of like how you interact with the world. And I noticed that a lot of how I was interacting with the world was not, helping me really. Um, so the intro to the book kind of gives a good overview of this, but I had this day, this is before I had a kid and it was like, now having had a kid, I'm like, wow, this was actually like a fantastic day.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
I should have just appreciated it. But you know, it was like, I got stuck in traffic. I got a bad haircut. I got photos taken that looked really bad. Um, I had a stressful thing where I had to like pick my mom up at the airport, but I had to go grocery shopping before. But like there was like a delay at the grocery store and then I was going to be late to pick up my mom.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
And it was like this whole thing. And I just had a meltdown. I got back to my Airbnb that I was staying in and I was like, drank wine and like cried to my boyfriend at the time and was just like, I hate everything.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Um, and then I kind of got to thinking and I was like, even like me saying that now to you, I'm like, wow, that is so whiny and like unappreciative of the fact that like that day, you know, I was able to buy groceries. I was in Miami. Like I got myself to Miami. Uh,
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
I, you know, was getting a haircut, like spa day for me, you know, I got professional photos taken, like, you know, and it was sort of like I had this realization that like, wow, I can take anything good and positive and maybe or maybe even just like mediocre, right? Like a lot of things that happen in life are kind of like, oh, that was whatever.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
And I have a tendency to dwell on the negatives and to emphasize the negatives and create these stories out of the negatives that were not serving me. And it was making me not enjoy my life to the extent that it could have and should have been enjoyed. And so that's kind of the long and the short of it, why I decided to change.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
There's a time and a place to feel your emotions. You can feel your emotions and also like.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Yeah, so neuroticism was one of the things I wanted to change. So neuroticism is one of the five traits and it's just anxiety and depression, right? And I had a lot of that. I had a lot of anxiety and a lot of kind of negativity, as I mentioned. But there are other elements of personality and they sort of encompass those other things that you mentioned.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
So actually, as far as like improving my neuroticism, a big thing I actually looked to was Buddhism and a lot of Buddhist teachings. Because a lot of neuroticism, it's not about like – reducing the number of things that happen to you that are bad. I mean, although if you're addicted to drugs and that's why bad things keep happening to you, that's something to look to.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
But let's say you're a functional person who's living a basically normal life, it's going to be a lot easier to change your reactions to the things that happen to you than it is to make every single thing in the world go your way. That's why I looked inward. Personality does encompass a lot of those things that you mentioned. Um, Buddhism has a lot to say about depression and anxiety.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Um, uh, and you know, as far as like lifestyle, that was really more extroversion. Like I, I wanted to become more extroverted. Um, and that was a big part. Uh, lifestyle was a big part of that is, is sort of, uh, how often do you go out to socialize and do you make an effort to do that?
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
You know, not just like, do you sit, sit by the phone and wait for people to contact you, but do you make connections? Do you try to get out there? Um, so those, those are things that I did. Um, but I called it personality change because personality includes all that.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
yeah so people are not going to be thrilled to hear this but the happiest people are like high in all the traits except for neuroticism um so so there's five traits um i will just briefly say what they are it's so openness to experience happy people are high in that because that's like
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
yeah spiritual but not religious like creative imaginative um uh conscientiousness which is like getting stuff done um so it's like uh being places on time and being like healthy and exercising happy people tend to be high in that um extroversion extroverts are happier that's like a really consistent finding in psychology unfortunately i i was i'm an introvert and i was not thrilled to hear that
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
Agreeableness, agreeable people are happier. They're always like making friends and going to baby showers and what have you. And then neuroticism is the one that's correlated with unhappiness. And so the opposite of it is emotional stability. That's what it's called. And people who are high in that are happier.
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
um at what age do you think we really feel like stuck in who we are yeah so i would say there's not an age at which we we start to stick in who we are so that used to be the thinking um this like influential psychologist named william james um had this infamous sort of quote that like uh the character is set like plaster by the age of 30
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
um and uh which is relevant for your podcast for people in their 20s um so i mean even he said like in your 20s you can still change but um but uh kind of more recent research has found that that's not really true that people kind of continue to change throughout their lives even naturally even if you don't really do anything to try to change your personality is gonna
The Psychology of your 20s
282. Can we change our personality?
You're going to be a different person, you know, when you have kids and like a job than you were in college, than you were in high school, you know, and that is like freeing and it's kind of scary, but it's also kind of nice that like, you're not going to be like, if you're not crazy about something, you know, about yourself or about your life, you're not stuck with it forever.