How do you improve your personality?

[machoman]

An impressive and powerful personality is an essential asset for each one of us today.How could you improve your personality?

[AlexG]

Figure out what you want to have and how you want to be and act.

Make sure you know your goal and what you are going after. Then you would just start working on those specific elements chaning your personality from inside out.

Sometimes fake it till you make it.

Often it helps having a role model. Famous person, influential individual.

[Jarrod]

Define personality

[machoman]

Originally Posted by Jarrod

Define personality

here's the definition:

1.The complex of all the attributes--behavioral, temperamental, emotional and mental--that characterize a unique individual.
2.A person of considerable prominence.

[Nicketas]

You need both the RIGHT kind of education, as well as experience.

Remember this: Bad advice is WORSE than no advice at all.

You cannot completely change your personality.

Instead, spend time discovering who you really are already, your natural personality style. I recommend the KWML.com test.


Then from that work on yourself further by making lots of decisions about what you want in your life very specifically.

[Jarrod]

Originally Posted by Nicketas

You need both the RIGHT kind of education, as well as experience.

I agree with that. But what is the right kind of education?

[songwriter]

I've voted last option. Simply learning... and try hard to be better. There's an old saying like "But I'm this way!"... you can change, it's not easy, but if you think you need it, of if the times get tough and force you, you will change. The own brain can be "constructed" for a person. We are responsibles of how we are.

And learning include books... but not just books, you can learn through a lot of ways, well, no matter what you do, you learn (like the Alanis Morrissette song).

And I'd like to add that examples are the best way for me to learn. I mean people. I sometimes know someone that has a trait in his/her personality I dig. I try to learn from that person, then.

[MattFYF]

I choose... none of your choices.

Personality can be changed, but it's super difficult. You have to model and act out the behavior you want on a daily basis, with constant reinforcement of that behavior. Eventually it becomes a personality trait, which in turn stays with you until you change your personality again.

Type B people can go to Type A, lazy slobs can turn into self-disciplined nutty goal setters, super athletic folk can turn into potato chip eating, sit-in-front-of-the-TV-and-do-nothing average people. It depends on what behavior you want to instill, and if there's going to be reinforcement for that behavior. (Self-discipline can work, but it's a lot easier if you have the right context. Why would you work on a personality trait like self-discipline if you have nothing to become self-disciplined for?)

The younger you are, especially if you're in your early 20s or younger, the easier it is to mold your personality. It's not impossible if you're in your 30s, 40s, 50s, etc., it's just much harder.

[Anand Dhillon]

Here's a general method for changing your personality.

1. List all the personality traits you want to have
2. Pick the one that is most important to you
3. Find someone who has that personality trait and model them. Ideally, they should be somone you know but you can also model from videos, books etc. When modelling someone, you need to focus both on their internal world (beliefs, thought patterns etc.) and their external world (behaviors).
4. Work on internalizing that personality trait for an extended period of time (3-6 months). During this time, you want to take on the behaviors of that personality trait as well as making your internal world congruent with that trait (this includes eliminating blocks, journaling etc.)
5. Pick the next trait and repeat

For example, let`s say you want to learn to be funny. You could start studying humor by getting a few books, watching standup comedy and spending more time with your friends that are really funny. Now, once you have an intellectual understanding, you need to fully integrate the personality trait. This means trying to be funny (and failing repeatedly) in more situations. Often during this time you will overdo it and it won`t come off right because it is incongruent. As time passes, you will start to develop a more intuitive understanding of humor. Eventually, you will reach the point of unconsious competence where funny is not something you do but something you are.

The same process can be used for pretty much anything - confidence, assertiveness, empathy. The real keys are having a good model for the trait, continuous focus and committing to it for a long period of time.

[Bruce Achterberg]

I also choose... none of your choices. =)

The notion that you can "improve" your personality doesn't hold up when you do the research.

Your personality--your dominant patterns of thought, feeling, and behaviour--are not going to change much at all after the age of 16.

You can learn new skills or more knowledge, but you cannot significantly change your personality.

See here for more info:
Welcome to The Marcus Buckingham Company ®

For in-depth info, read the books:

• Now, Discover Your Strengths (if you only get one, get this one)
• The One Thing You Need to Know

The first book is one of the 3 books that I recommend everyone should read in their lifetime. It's not just semi-useful. It's revolutionary, mindblowing, and if you really make the effort to take the ideas to heart, it'll change the way you look at the world. Most books promise this, but this one comes through. It's only the first step in a journey, though, but you must take the first step before the second.

[machoman]

Originally Posted by Nicketas

You need both the RIGHT kind of education, as well as experience.

Remember this: Bad advice is WORSE than no advice at all.

You cannot completely change your personality.

Instead, spend time discovering who you really are already, your natural personality style. I recommend the KWML.com test.


Then from that work on yourself further by making lots of decisions about what you want in your life very specifically.

I cannot agree with your statement that you cannot completely change your personality
.Let us consider an example: If we want to improve our confidence,say in public speaking, we can attend seminar on how to speak confidently in public or by reading books and using all these methods in our life until it becomes a second nature to us. So if after all these, do you say that you cannot completely our personality? Is this not a complete change in personality?
Let us consider another example. If we want to quit smoking, then we can use hypnosis or attend any courses to quit that bad habit. So after all these and we did quit smoking,then do you consider this a no complete change in personality?

[Stu]

Changing your personality is completely possible. Until about 10 years ago it was generally accepted that what Bruce said is right, that after your late teens / early 20s (depending on who you asked) the brain was basically set and it couldn't be changed.

About 10 years ago the scientific community, due to an overwhelming amount of compelling evidence, changed it's collective mind and it's now generally accepted that the brain can be changed right up until the day you die.

For anyone interested in looking in to this further, I wrote about the link between neuroplasticity and personal growth here, and if you're dead set against reading my blog, the process by which the brain changes itself is called neuroplasticity or brain plasticity.

So to answer the OP's question, personality change happens by way of neuroplasticity, and neuroplasticity takes consistent, patient, hard work.

[songwriter]

Even the medician who discovered the brain cells, long long time ago said "We can change our brains" always, at any age... actually personality uses to change in age in everyone . You can change anything. Thought most people thinks his personality is "the best" or the best they could have so there's nothing to improve or no need to change anything.

[lasti]

I chose 4). Experimenting and experiencing is sooo interesting!

[ZHereford]

Our personalities are not etched in stone. As we grow and develop so can our personalities. Here's an article I've written on this very subject: 10 Ways To Improve Your Personality.

[songwriter]

quite in a sync, in the Barcelona main's newspaper last page there was an interview today to some biologist/neurologist saying that the brain changes itself though its thoughts.... and the thoughts change when the brain changes too.