How to Intentionally Change Your Personality

By Jill Suttie

When we talk about our personality, many of us treat it as a fixed, unchanging part of us. But the truth is our personality can evolve and often does, even without us deliberately trying. For example, many of us are more open to new experiences and willing to take more risks when we’re younger, and we become more content and less reactive to stress as we age.

Our personality can also be changed with deliberate effort — not a shocking notion to anyone who’s been in therapy. But, outside of therapy or aging out of certain characteristics, is there another way to change our personalities?

According to journalist Olga Khazan, the answer to that question is “yes.” Her new book, Me, But Better, chronicles her personal journey toward trying on a new way of being in the world, while exploring the science behind personality change. Her account, both interesting and entertaining, shows us how you can fake it ’til you make it to become a better version of yourself.

“You can change your personality traits by behaving in ways that align with the kind of person you’d like to be,” she writes.

Why Try to Change Your Personality
It may be hard to imagine even wanting to change your personality, a seemingly essential part of yourself. But Khazan, a self-proclaimed neurotic and introvert, felt her excessive worrying and isolation were potentially hurting her. Research finds that people high in neuroticism (a tendency toward more emotional instability and a negative outlook on experiences) are more likely to suffer anxiety, depression, and substance abuse, and more neurotic women have a higher risk for Alzheimer’s. Likewise, research finds that extroverted people tend to be happier and that social relationships are important for health and well-being.

Adding to those sobering facts, Khazan needed to make some big life decisions — like whether to move to another state or to have a baby — and she felt her personality might be interfering. After all, it’s hard to make new friends when you tend to isolate yourself, and it’s tough to have children without imagining everything that could go wrong.

But, luckily for her, the science she reviewed and the researchers she interviewed gave her hope. And it helped her make the decision to plunge ahead with moving and having a child, while improving her relationships.

“A new and slightly improved personality, I learned, can make you happier, more successful, and more fulfilled,” she writes. “It can help you enjoy your life, rather than just endure it.”

Some of us can probably relate to Khazan’s quest to move our personalities in a different direction. We may wish we could be a little more extroverted or less neurotic, like her, or perhaps we’d like to be more open-minded, agreeable, or conscientious. This doesn’t mean we don’t like ourselves, per se, but we recognize that we could use a nudge in some way.

“Personality traits are on a spectrum, so wanting an increase in, say, agreeableness doesn’t mean you’re a self-loathing Grinch,” she writes. “It just means there’s something about that trait that could improve your life, and you want to try it on.”

To that end, Khazan’s book focuses on research behind the Big Five personality traits — openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism — one at a time, offering ideas for moving the needle on your own personality. While some traits may be easier to change than others, there are still options for moving yourself in the direction you want to go, she insists.

Here is a taste of what she did to change herself — and why.

How to be More Extroverted
While there is nothing inherently wrong with being an introvert — in fact, they have many gifts — there is no doubt that extroverted people tend to make friends more easily, which is good for someone moving to a new place. Khazan found it helpful to know that extraversion can be increased fairly easily.

“Of all five personality traits, extroversion offers the simplest path to personality change: You just have to go out and talk to people,” writes Khazan.

While an introvert may be loath to do that, they tend to benefit from forced social interaction — despite their expectations to the contrary. For example, a famous study found that asking people to talk to a stranger on their commute made them happier, whether or not they were introverted or wished they could ignore people instead.

Khazan was more daring than most in pursuing extroversion. She signed up for an improv class, probably because she’s the type of person who’s open to new experiences. But you needn’t go that far yourself. Just starting up conversations with people you come across in life or joining a class or group with a different focus might also stretch you.

If you’re an introvert, becoming more social might mean pushing through some discomfort, says Khazan. But, as with most things, practice over time helps. Extroversion may become more familiar and natural to you the more you try. And it may have other unexpected benefits, like decreasing your neurotic overthinking.

How to be Less Neurotic
When you’re high in neuroticism, you tend to be more nervous and anxious, risk-averse, and unable to make decisions easily. This can look like hypervigilance against threats, which—while helpful in rare situations — is not an easy way to live life. As Khazan puts it, being more neurotic means “to live every day like you’re under invasion,” and it’s the trait most people want to change. The constant rehashing of the past and worrying about an uncertain future can really take a toll on you, affecting your ability to move forward in life.

To lessen her own neuroticism, Khazan tried meditation practices, including body scans and walking meditations, with the aim of focusing her more in the present moment without judgment. But, she writes, she found herself balking at some of the Buddhist teachings that came with meditation around letting go or accepting everything.

A part of her, she realized, was ambivalent about being less neurotic because she viewed it as helpful, in a way — her anxiety fueling better performance at work and protecting her from making mistakes — which made it hard to commit.

“One of the biggest obstacles to changing personality is this kind of ambivalence: a sense that yeah, maybe you should get around to being less angry or drunk or chronically late, and maybe one day you will, but not today,” she writes.

Yet, being highly conscientious, Khazan plowed on and eventually discovered the benefits of meditation sneaking up on her. In particular, when she tried loving-kindness meditation, where you wish yourself and other people well, it helped her see neuroticism in a different light — an insight that helped her let it go a bit.

“Loving-kindness forced me to consider, even if only for a few minutes, that love and achievement can be untangled, and that living itself merits recognition,” she writes.

How to be More Agreeable
Agreeableness refers to being kind, cooperative, and friendly. As Khazan notes, “The agreeable are likable, help people in need, and forgive people who wrong them. They tend to have better relationships with their romantic partners and friends. They laugh, nod, and smile more at other people; they’re kinder and less offensive.” All of which speaks to the ways that being more agreeable can benefit you (and the people around you).

While Khazan scored in the midrange on this trait, she still wanted to become more agreeable, especially toward her partner. She confesses in the book that she tends to lash out at him when irritated or angry, rather than trying to be more empathic. And she worried how this might affect future parenting.

To get training on agreeableness, she decided to tackle her biggest barrier — her anger. By attending an anger management group, she learned calming techniques, like questioning your assumptions and taking deep breaths before reacting out of anger. This was hard to put into practice, but necessary to grow.

Agreeableness isn’t just reducing anger, though; it’s also bringing more warmth and kindness into your life. People who perform random acts of kindness or volunteer, both signs of agreeableness, tend to have greater happiness, improved mental health, and even longer lives. Khazan decided to volunteer in a soup kitchen, herself. Even though it wasn’t always pleasant, and was downright boring sometimes, Khazan saw that giving to others changed her.

How to Tweak This Research for Yourself
There is more information in the book about research on each of these traits, as well as how to increase openness to experience and conscientiousness (or decrease them a bit, if they are hurting your well-being). Only you can assess what you need, though, which might be accomplished by taking a personality test.

In this sense, Khazan’s book is less a primer and more of an example of what’s possible. You may need to take a different direction, yourself, or have other ideas of how to reach your goals. As Khazan has done, you might consult experts who can help you tailor a program to your own journey.

Still, Khazan’s book is worth reading — in particular, for her self-deprecating humor and honest storytelling. By hearing about her trials and tribulations, as well as her successes, you may be inspired to aim for a better life via personality change yourself.

“Though I realize that it’s unusual to frame self-improvement this way, many of the shortcomings that irk us — messiness, impatience — are elements of personality,” she writes. “You can’t change yourself without changing your personality, too.”