The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Has anybody here ever substantially changed their personality? I don't mean a simple increase in confidence or developing a taste for beer. I mean a fundamental shift in polarity -- going from an introvert to an extrovert, a risk-averse nerd to an overconfident jock, etc.. Do you think there's any limit on the changes people can make in themselves, barring traumatic events or assistance from drugs?
Hmm. My personality changed at age 15 following a traumatic experience. I went from jovial class clown to quiet, somewhat intense, gentle nerd. Wasn't deliberate though.
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The most reliable way to change your personality is to change the contexts in which it is expressed. If you're always a nebbish follower, it is likely because there are always other people leading you around, and you've adjusted yourself to that. Want to be more assertive? Put yourself in charge of people, you'll learn. They'll look at you as a leader, you'll learn to lead. Over time, leading will become the habit, and that will take over in other contexts outside of the context where you were forced to adapt.
Obviously there are limits to this. I'll never be the overconfident jock that, say, Sauce Gardner is because there is no possible context for me to be that much more talented than that many others. But if you want to feel more like a confident jock, the thing to do is to work out and find a rec league of a sport weird enough that you can compete; that will give you the context you need. That's why white people in America invent a new sport every five years or so, so that people can experience that context when they aren't good enough for the headline team sports.
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I remember a phase change in early childhood. I was a rather introverted kid, refusing to interact with strangers or even family outside my immediate one.
One day, an aunt of mine tried talking to me, and I remember mentally going fuck it, what's the harm? and engaged in a bit of polite conversation. She was extremely surprised, pleasantly so, and I recall feeling gratified by the positive feedback, along the lines of "huh, that wasn't bad at all, maybe I should talk to people?", and I did so from there on out. I'd say that's a change from an utter introvert to an ambivert.
A more recent example was college, where I made an effort to make friends, not that I tried particularly hard, but it seems I'm an interesting enough guy that I had friends who would look for me and drag me along to places even if I was perfectly content being a shut-in.
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I've changed slowly over many years. Was an INFP Myers Briggs personality type as a kid and teen. Now I consistently test INTJ, and the degree of introvertedness has gone down a lot.
The noticeable effect is that I am much more hard hearted. Can be good and bad sometimes.
I think there are some limits on how much you can change, depending on your brain. Even the most socially inclined autists are at a social disadvantage. I spent years trying to fight and cope with depression through willpower and habits alone before giving up and getting medicine.
I think most people are more mentally flexible than they give themselves credit for. But it takes many years of good habits to create the change. The main way to do it is just pretend to be the person you want to be, and if you do that long enough you no longer have to pretend eventually.
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At some point I went from looking like a doormat for abuse but actually being on a hair trigger to start swinging and getting in fights all the time; to looking like if you talked shit your life was in danger but actually being calm and able to avoid conflict.
It was a purposeful change, after I got pretty good at wrestling and got big enough that I almost ended some guys whole career as a functional human in freshman year over some stupid bullshit, it put the fear of god into me.
I think that is the limit also: You need either a trauma response avoidance of something; or a crazy desire for something to make the change. you can't just think your way into it.
The Hock provideth.
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Yes. I went from the "dumb guy" to the "smart guy". Im naturally "smart" but that was unrealised/unapparent until I got to university because I spent a majority of my school years skipping classes, playing video games and just fucking around. In university I decided to take things seriously for once given the higher stakes.
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I believe this applies to me. I have gone from: highly introverted (and I mean never spoke unless spoken to, never attended a single social event, etc) to extremely extroverted (arranging the social events, and being a hub of my social circle instead of a spoke.) The shift was part gradual, part lurching, and quite difficult. The largest shifts were when I joined an improv troupe, acted in a play, and began going dancing at clubs. No drugs, no alcohol, nothing of the sort was involved.
Basically I think the crux of it was forcing myself to do things that were completely contrary to my nature for an extended period of time (constantly for months). Eventually the nature gave out and adapted to the situations it was forced into. Any extended period where I went without social contact resulted in me getting reset very quickly. It has to be maintained for years to stick.
After a couple years with basically 0 days without extended social contact, something flipped in me and I actually enjoy it now.
Why did I do this? I deeply believe that wide social connection would cure effectively every social ailment of the postmodern era, and was determined to make my own little piece of the world a bit better. It has largely worked, though the work never stops. Such is the nature of good things.
That's amazing. I too was (and to some degree still am) introverted, to the point that I'd need to just escape to silence sometimes if I had to spend a lot of time around people because of some quasi social activity (eg school). In my early twenties I experienced some fairly dramatic changes abroad and when I returned home I, too, was arranging reunions and social get-togethers and hosting parties.
But then it stopped. I think the catalyst was a situation where a girl I really liked basically began completely ignoring me after a sexual encounter. I chalk it up to my expressed neediness in the face of her confidence--I can remember at a traffic light as I sat in my Volkswagen Jetta a Camaro pulling up and she was in the passenger seat laughing at the aside of a guy with this long blonde Fabio hair--not at all like me, and not at all like what I would have thought she (intellectual, Jewish, nerdy) would like. Lesson learned. Anyway right about then it was as if my confidence had been deflated like a balloon.
In the many, many years since I've forced myself, similar to as you describe, into a career where I daily stand in front of people (my typical lecture is in front of 100+) and this has helped forge me into someone no longer so choked up it's hard to speak, but I still think I'm am introvert.
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I'm not sure that I've substantially changed my introverted self to an extroverted sense, but I can "mask" (or whatever term the kids are using these days) significantly better than I used to.
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