Change Your Personality

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There is one thing I really don't like about myself.

I mean, there are several, but I'm only going to tell you about this one right now.

It can be the most beautiful day, like springtime, cherry blossoms, every direction you look, and immediately, instinctively, my mind will scan for the one thing wrong.

Like, gross, there's pollen all over that car.

I have definitely tried over the years to do this or that to counteract it, like cultivate a more positive mindset or start my day by saying three things I'm grateful for.

But I think there's just a part of me that thinks, well, that's just how Hannah is.

Like there's some core of Hannah Rosen, whether it's genetic or epigenetic or learned, that will always scan for the negative.

I'm Hannah Rosen.

This is Radio Atlantic.

And today we're talking about personality.

what it is and whether it's something you can actually change.

So many decades ago, William James did come up with this theory that personality is sort of set like plaster at age 30, and it never softens again after age 30.

That's staff writer Olga Hazan.

And the William James she's talking about is considered the father of American psychology.

But his view of personality doesn't hold up to modern scrutiny.

There wasn't a whole lot of research on personality or psychology.

It just wasn't really like a developed science.

So when researchers started doing more modern studies about this, what they found after following, you know, the same group of people for decades and decades is that most people actually do change.

And if they do stuff to try to change, they kind of change even faster.

Like me, Olga had things about her personality that she wished she could change.

And when she learned that it's not so set in stone, she thought she'd give it a try.

She made it a months-long project, an experiment, and she wrote about it in a new book called Me But Better.

So I love this idea.

I find it very inspiring, as I'm sure a lot of people do.

Why did you start it?

Like, obviously there were things about yourself that you didn't like, which there are things about all of us that we don't like.

But what was it in your case?

Yeah.

So on top of not liking certain things about myself, something that I noticed is that I just wasn't very happy and I wasn't.

enjoying my life to the extent that I thought that I could.

So what started this was that I had just a really rough day.

I was in Miami in December, so definitely nothing to complain about environment-wise.

I had to go get professional photos taken for our job

and I had to get a haircut before the photos were taken.

And so I go, I book a hair appointment.

This haircut is terrible.

It's probably one of the worst haircuts I've ever gotten in my life.

Details.

Details.

Was it a bang problem?

It wasn't a bang problem.

Okay, I try to emphasize every time I get my cut that my hair does not take layers well.

And they always do layers despite what I explicitly said.

And maybe I need to just be more straightforward about it.

But anyway, so there was like a mushrooming effect because of the

attempted layers.

Yeah.

Anyway, so I'm like leaving the hairstyle.

I'm like, oh my God, I look terrible.

Like have to go directly to the photo session where I got professional photos taken that looked really bad in my opinion.

And then I had to right away drive on to the grocery store to get a bunch of groceries for dinner that night.

And as I was driving, I went the wrong way and got stuck on this island that cruise ships launch from.

Then once I recovered from that, I got to the grocery store.

And as I was leaving, my shopping cart locked and I had to drag the shopping cart across the parking lot to my car.

And while this all was happening, my boss was slacking me edits on a story.

Oh my gosh.

So I like do these edits sitting in this like hot car.

I like drive on.

I get back to the Airbnb and I just freak out.

Like I honestly just had a like meltdown.

Not a panic attack, but like crying, like chugging wine, just screaming like I hate everyone.

You know, and I settled down eventually and I was sort of like, why do I react so badly to things that are kind of minor?

Like, honestly, just even recounting that day as a new parent, I'm kind of like, eh, so like,

like, you know, it's, it's like, that's bad, but that's not that bad.

And I kind of realized that it was my personality that was

making days like that worse than they had to be that was like undermining my happiness in those moments.

Okay.

I just want to question that for one second.

First of all, I'm sorry you had that day.

It sucks.

And I understand you just want to be frustrated.

Like you don't want to be screaming and crying.

Like you don't want to have a breakdown.

You just want to be like, you know, casually frustrated.

I think a lot of people, when they are sad or, you know, they feel unhappy, like the traditional roots is see a shrink, get on meds, you know, whatever, journal.

Like, I don't think that I would have thought, okay,

it's my actual personality, like to look at yourself, break your personality down.

I mean, it's, it's interesting.

It was an interesting response you had.

And I'm wondering how you even knew in that moment to look at yourself and think, oh, it's my personality.

Yeah.

So actually seeing a shrink and taking medication do change your personality.

Interesting.

So, and that is to say that like personality change is kind of the root of a lot of different types of personal growth and self-improvement.

So what I was kind of describing just now is a high level of neuroticism, which I did have.

And so bringing that down is personality change.

And one way to do that is through therapy and medications.

But I think kind of beyond just neuroticism, I was also just kind of unhappy with other parts of my life.

Like I honestly just didn't socialize much.

Like I kind of reflexively didn't socialize.

I didn't have a lot of friends, which to me was like a different thing than neuroticism.

And then I kind of just was really snippy with my boyfriend at the time, my husband now, and honestly, like would get in a lot of fights with my friends, which is like this other trait called agreeableness.

So I don't know, it's, it felt more like all-encompassing than just the like, I need to handle my stress better.

Right.

Okay.

So you've been mentioning some of the main traits that you outline in your book.

Can you just lay out the different components so we can follow you through this experiment?

So there's five traits that make up personality, and we all have these five traits inside of us, and they can be remembered with the acronym OSHAN.

So it's O for openness to experiences, which is like creativity and imaginativeness.

C for conscientiousness, which is like being on time, being super organized, being really diligent.

E for extroversion, so being sociable, cheerful, active.

A for agreeableness, which is being warm and empathetic and trusting.

And N for neuroticism, which is being neurotic, being anxious and depressed.

Okay, so that's how you started to like break your own problems down.

Like there's this bucket, that bucket, that bucket.

we won't do the whole ocean of personality but i really want to talk about a few that interest me the most maybe we'll start with extroversion because being outgoing is a common goal lots of people say oh i want to have more friends particularly post pandemic how extroverted were you at the start of this process let me look up my exact score

oh they were scores okay so you actually get a number yeah when you take the the personality test i was taking you do get a number

that's a little brutal Yeah.

Oh, okay.

I scored in the 23rd percentile, which is very low, especially when it came to being friendly or cheerful.

Uh-huh.

Interesting.

Okay.

Okay.

When you first got that number, how does that feel?

I was like, that checks out.

You weren't surprised.

Okay.

So how did you go about this?

Like, that's the kind of thing where someone would say, okay, well, I'm just not that extroverted.

And you, one road would be acceptance.

I'm just not that extroverted.

I'm going to stay home and watch TV a lot.

Yeah.

And I did that road for a long time.

So one kind of interesting twist here is that when psychologists take a bunch of introverts and they tell them, go out and act like extroverts for a few minutes, go socialize, you know, go hang out.

And then they come back and they're like, how do you feel?

They actually say they feel happier.

And they also say they feel more like themselves.

Something about your saying that like makes me

nervous.

I think it's just because of the Susan Kane book Quiet, where we've come to appreciate the power of introverts.

What do you say about that?

So yeah, I mean, I think like I really, really liked the book Quiet, and I really like Susan Kane personally.

I just think that like there are benefits for introverts to occasionally act like extroverts.

I think it's okay to still identify as an introvert and to like appreciate all of the perks that come with that, but to also also occasionally be able to at least try on this more outgoing personality trait.

So when you set out to try and change this part of yourself, you know, raise your score, we'll just put it that way concretely.

Were you saying to yourself, I want to change Olga and make Olga not an introvert, or I want to try on extroversion for sometimes, like a costume, or I want to change my score?

Like, what was your goal?

My goal was to change my score so to be more extroverted.

I didn't think it would work well enough to like make me an extrovert.

In the end, like I think my latest test that I took did put me at like technically in the extrovert category, but I didn't think that it would work that well.

Okay, so how did you do it?

I signed up for a bunch of activities and went to them.

I

signed up for improv comedy, a sailing club, like a bunch of meetups.

Wow.

And I threw a party at my house for the first time.

Wow.

And all the while, just so people understand what this kind of experiment is like in case they want to try it, are you uncomfortable?

Like, surely you're going against your what you initially called natural inclinations.

So I ended up doing improv for about eight months or so.

And probably for the first six months, every time I went, I felt this overwhelming sense of dread.

Like you almost wish that you could get in a car accident on the way there so that you wouldn't have to go.

That is extreme.

I totally sympathize.

I understand.

Yeah.

Like, like, is there any way to get out of this?

Like, any, any, any way?

Like, please, God, like, don't make me go.

Like, I have extreme stage fright.

And so you get there and you're all sitting in a circle.

And then at some point, you get up and you just start doing improv with the other people who are there.

And the reason it helps you become extroverted is because it's relational.

Like, you have to be deeply attuned to this total stranger.

You have to be on the stage.

You have to perform.

Like it just forces you into

actions that are extroverted.

Oh, yes.

It makes you become like way more comfortable with chaos because everyday conversation is chaotic, but improv is even more chaotic than that.

Right.

And then as, so then, you know, let's say the 20th time you're going to improv class, does the initial dread fade or it's always that cycle?

I think over time it did fade, but even before it completely went away naturally, like I would start to feel it and I would kind of tell myself, like, no, like you're going to be fine.

It's just improv.

Like, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's okay.

Like you're going to feel good after, you know, it's very similar to how I like talk to my son now.

It's like, no,

you like this formula.

This is the good kind.

That's so funny.

So, so this is tricky to understand.

So by the end, you're doing it with a little bit less dread.

You're still talking yourself into it.

You're able to do it.

So you're not avoiding it.

You're doing it.

You're at times enjoying it, but it's still not your natural inclination.

So I would say it's not to do improv, but it's to connect with other people when I'm feeling down.

Like if I'm feeling isolated and withdrawn, I don't feel like the solution is just to spend more time by myself.

I feel like it's to connect with others and sort of get out of my head a little.

But that actually seems revolutionary.

Like if you think of one of our largest problems now, which is lack of connection, the idea that you can actually work at it, you know, like approach it like a project and change it slowly such that what you got, okay, maybe you're not going to be on SNL.

So that's not your destiny.

But what does change is that you don't go deeper into yourself when you are feeling whatever you're feeling.

Like you seek some kind of connection and research does show that that's healthy.

Yeah.

And that's that's kind of like the science behind why extroverts tend to show up as like happier.

They kind of just spend a lot of time around other people and other people tend to make us happy, even though we can all think of times when other people have not made us happy.

But, you know, I'm really glad I did that before having a baby because I think that my approach to new motherhood would have been totally different otherwise and much more isolating if I hadn't done this experiment to see, okay, actually being around others and connecting socially and even in a way that's like silly and doesn't totally make sense is like still a good thing.

Oh, that's amazing.

What's your extraversion score now?

Right now, my extroversion, it says it's very high.

Very high.

Yes.

So it went from very low to very high.

Yes.

It's not in the top 10%.

I would say it's probably like, I don't know, 60th percentile now.

I know, but you're getting all ambitious now.

Like you want to be in the top, top 10%.

I didn't get into the harbor of extraversion.

Exactly.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

Okay.

Very, very impressed, and I feel like people should try it.

So that was extroversion, the E in ocean.

After the break, Olga takes us through another section of her book, the N, the Negative, Nervous, capital N, neurotics.

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Okay, let's move on to the second trait that I want to talk about, which is neuroticism, the N of ocean.

That is one that I think many people would like to change about themselves, myself included.

What did your starting point there look like?

I think I scored higher than like literally everyone else on earth.

Oh, I was in the night.

I was in the 94th percentile.

So you did get into the Harvard of neuroticism.

Yeah, yeah.

Excellent.

Yeah.

Graduating.

And we're laughing, but like the feeling, I mean,

everyone's version of neurotic is different.

But can you talk a little bit about your own version?

Like, what is it that bothered you about your neuroticism?

So I was basically always anxious.

Like, there just wasn't a time when I wasn't anxious.

I was constantly thinking about stuff in the future that could go wrong or stuff in the past that did go wrong.

And like, why did I allow it to go wrong?

When good things would happen, there was like no living in the moment or like appreciating the good thing.

It was like on to the next thing that could go wrong.

Right, Right.

Or like, oh, the sunset is great, but like the one yesterday was better.

You know, like on vacation, like we would get to like some beautiful attraction or landmark of some kind.

And I'd be like, okay, what's next?

Like, yeah, right, right.

Like that kind of thing.

Yeah.

So you started out with Harvard level high baseline neuroticism.

This one is hard to face, I will say.

So what was your process of trying to change it?

So I followed this like one study that's been done on personality change, but a lot of those suggestions were like a lot of gratitude journaling and i did do that uh but a lot of it was also meditation

which i know

anything else i know i was like seriously i was like diving so deep into the like psychology is there like something where i can like walk backwards for a mile and be cured you know how there's there are headlines sometimes that are like this is the one thing you need to do it's always meditation so i'm like you're not surprising me in this headline headline.

Yes, yes, yeah.

It's always meditation.

It was indeed meditation.

So it was a meditation class that I took.

It was like kind of like Buddhism for dummies, like during the day, like we would all gather and they would like do this PowerPoint with kind of very basic Buddhist ideas.

And then we had to meditate for 45 minutes a day.

As beginners?

Yes.

That's an intimidating amount of time.

It was really, really, really hard.

I honestly don't think I could do it with a kid now.

I don't really have 45 minutes anymore.

But I think if people are like trying this at home, like I think they should start with way less because it can feel so daunting that you're like, why even bother, you know?

And there's a lot of meditations out there that I also found effective that are much shorter, like 10 or 15 minutes.

So you starting out as the person with high neuroticism.

You face meditation as a person who sees meditation all over the culture.

So there's already a barrier to entry.

So how do you slide into that one?

Because I actually understand the benefits of meditation.

I just also understand the ubiquity, the cultural ubiquity of meditation and thus the resistance to it, you know?

So how do you sneak your way in so that it's helpful?

Yeah, so I basically was like dragged, kicking, and screaming.

And unlike with improv, I didn't enjoy it at any point.

Like, so we would have these like phone calls with our meditation teacher to see like how things were going.

And basically all my phone calls were like all about how much I hated meditation.

Which is maybe neurotic?

Like

I'm not doing it right.

Yeah, I was like, can I listen to music?

Can I listen to a podcast?

Like, can I wash the dish?

She's like, no, like, you need to be there and like sit with whatever comes up and like whatever stuff she said.

I was like, that doesn't make any sense.

We had like this all-day meditation retreat where all we did was meditate all day.

It was like the worst day of my life.

I like hated it so much.

Like, oh my God.

And they were, at one point, I think they got frustrated with me because they're like, you sound like you're striving and like you're not supposed to strive in meditation.

And I was like, yeah, of course I'm striving.

So it, yeah, it was, it was just so hard and so painful and it worked.

Whoa.

Okay.

So what, can you describe how the turn happened?

I think many people would want to know.

So I don't think there ever was a turn.

I sort of hated it all the way through, all the way through the, the, like, retreat.

And then I took the test like not long after the retreat and my neuroticism had actually fallen so much that it was considered low it was in the 39th percentile

but you went from 97 to low yeah i no longer scored like extremely high or whatever it was but i will say it was mostly because of a change in my depression score like so i have really really high anxiety and i also had high depression and my depression went down by a lot and my anxiety also went down a little but not by as much.

And what do you attribute that to?

I mean, that's amazing.

Like, you know, going down on depression or anxiety is fantastic.

So what do you attribute it to?

Do you attribute it to the meditation or to

the act of focusing on yourself for some amount of time so that you're taking your depression seriously?

Or what was it?

So two-part answer here.

One is that, so this class that I took called MBSR has gone head-to-head with the antidepressant Lexapro, and it actually works allegedly as well as Lexapro.

So there is kind of precedent for it bringing down anxiety and depression.

And I think the answer, maybe it was the meditation just like working in the background, like sweeping away the cobwebs or whatever without me like noticing, you know, because it's like you're supposed to just let your thoughts pass like clouds or whatever.

But I think the more kind of immediately efficacious thing was that these like Buddhism for dummies lessons were like very helpful for me.

Even though I thought they were kind of stupid, I found them really helpful.

And in particular, my meditation teacher would always say, things happen that we don't like.

And I realized that I was someone who was very filled with self-blame for things not going the way they were quote unquote supposed to go.

Like getting stuck in traffic.

I would get like this overwhelming like rage at myself whenever I was stuck in traffic.

And it was, it's traffic.

Like, you know, know, there's nothing you can do about it.

But I realized that I was like,

I had this, I don't know, wrong image of other people's lives as perfect because they manage them perfectly.

Right.

And that I'm the only one who can't.

Right.

And for some reason, this like PowerPoint focused like Buddhism class helped me get rid of some of that.

I believe everything the Buddhists say.

I have never found any of it unhelpful.

It's always incredibly helpful if I can just get myself to sit down and pay attention.

Yes.

Okay.

So basically, this experiment was successful for you.

Yes.

Yes.

And when did you do it?

I did this right before I got pregnant.

All right.

So that's an important marker.

So that would be like two years ago you did this experiment.

Now, what has stayed with you about it?

So I will say that right after

I had Evan, my scores got all like I'm looking at my graphs of my scores and there's like a huge dip on all of them right after the baby came.

Um, because postpartum, you know, depression can affect all these things.

Also, like you're not socializing, you're not, you know, being nice, you're not like being conscientious, you're not showering like in that immediate postpartum period.

So they all crashed and burned like right after the baby came.

But I actually just recently took the tests again.

You know, he's a year old now, and I just took them again like a month ago.

And they actually went back up, not quite to the level as like they were when I was doing the book, but back up for the most part, I would say, across all the traits.

And I think that's just because like I've been able lately to get back more into

some of what I was doing for the book, not all of them.

Interesting.

Okay.

So how you are using this in your life, this whole experiment that you did, is first of all,

it convinced you that you can change things about elements of your personality.

Like you know that to be true now.

And so you have these markers and they essentially serve as goals.

And if you're finding yourself to be unhappy, then you can work on one or another of these goals.

Like it just allows you to be more self-aware, notice things about yourself, and it gives you some very concrete tools to fix it.

Yeah, that's how I see it.

And that's, I mean, Nate Hudson, the researcher whose work kind of forms the backbone of the book, he really describes personality traits as tools.

Like they, they help you get what you want in life, which is why like I kind of shy away from the like, don't change your personality if you like yourself.

Cause, you know, I liked myself before and I like myself now, but now I feel like I know how to, you know, get more out of life.

That's really, really interesting.

Like you wouldn't have minded yourself if you'd been a somewhat isolated mother who didn't see that many mothers.

Yeah, I don't think I would have.

You know, I think I would have had a much lonelier and more stressful postpartum experience.

I think I would have just thought thought that's what it is like.

Like that's Olga's version of parenting and that's okay.

Like you wouldn't have hated yourself for it.

Yeah, exactly.

But instead what I did is I joined this new moms group.

And in general, I just have made more of a point of reaching out to other new moms and just kind of getting together as much as possible or even just like keeping in touch like over WhatsApp or whatever, you know, sharing experiences or just like, what the hell is this?

Is this normal type stuff?

That has honestly honestly made it so much less bad, I think, and less isolating.

Like, I wouldn't say that I like have a village, but it's just nice to not feel like you're the only person in the world who's ever had a baby.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you're, you have the advantage of going into motherhood with all of this understanding of personality.

Have you found yourself talking about your son or thinking about your son with some of this research in mind?

Yeah, you know,

Evan is very smiley

and he's just like very happy he like smiles very easily he smiles at people he knows and likes and my parents tell me that i was not like that

thanks mom yeah

And so the way I talk about it, I'm like, oh, he gets that from my husband, Rich.

And I don't know.

I'm just like, I like really, sorry, I'm going to, I'm like trying not to choke up.

That's okay.

Sorry.

I, I really like, want to not mess that up for him.

Like, I want to, I don't know.

Sorry.

No, that's okay.

You want to keep him happy.

Yeah.

I did not like keep him happy, but like, I hope that that continues.

I don't know.

Yeah.

No, I thought you were going somewhere different.

I thought what you were going to say is, I don't want to think about his personality as fixed.

Like, I want to allow him, like, if he wants to be unhappy or if he wants to be, you know, if he wants to be a different way or throw a temper tantrum, that's, that's okay.

Like, I will keep in mind that we can, you know, we can move towards a goal later.

But I think what you're saying is more, you know, simple and beautiful.

And I appreciate that.

I'm sorry that your mom was

like when my mom used to tell me how much cuter my brother was than me as a baby every single time we look at baby pictures.

Lovely.

Yeah.

Well, Olga, thank you so much.

I feel like this will inspire a lot of people to try it.

So thank you so much for writing it down.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks so much for having me on.

This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Kevin Townsend and edited by Claudina Bade.

We had engineering support from Roberts Merciak, fact-checking by Genevieve Finn.

Claudina Bade is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.

Listeners, if you like what you hear on Radio Atlantic, Remember, you can support our work and the work of all Atlantic journalists when you subscribe to the Atlantic at theatlantic.com theatlantic.com/slash listener.

I'm Hannah Rosen.

Thank you for listening.