You can and you do change as you age.

First, you learn new things and you live new experiences. This changes your personality, for better or for worse.

Second, your personality is rooted in your ideals and beliefs, and you can purposefully change those.

Your personality can be described as the way you act and react, and both of those are learned. You may even say programmed. You can change the way you react to some situations, or the way you act in some situations. It takes a bit of practice.

Now that can sound easy, but it requires you to be very open-minded and honest about yourself, because you think with your beliefs already, so changing them may not be that easy. You need to litteraly think differently than you usually do. It’s a lot of introspection.

Wouldn’t it be 180?

Are you aware, that 360 is a full circle? Opposite would be 180.

You certainly can change your personality. It takes a long time and effort. That being said if you want to change your personality you shouldn’t take a 360 turn

i would jump at the chance to have electro-shock. the only way into a better life (for me, BPD) would be to change personality altogether. i wouldn’t hesitate at all.

My family hurt my feelings, so I went from class clown to silent observer. I intended to only modify my behavior around them, but it started to spill into other areas of my life. Now I’m a very quiet person.

I believe you can! To change honestly is an epic task, you need willpower & foremost the characteristic of self reflection, self observation from the most possible objective perspective (I know, complete objectivity not achievable), and you need a person you can trust to get another point of view imo, but at the end of the day you need only one thing: the honest, straight and truthful will to change. I’ve seen people turn 180°. That’s what life is for imo.

Probably not the safest thing head-wise, but I guess you can achieve this with LSD ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A long time ago I listened to a podcast episode (Probably Hidden Brain or something) where they discussed how memory affects your personality. People with dementia or some other memory related condition tend to have a different personality than they previously did. Then on another podcast, video or something I picked up another interesting piece of information. People can make new fake memories. Put these two together, and you got a strange method I came up with. If I’m able to come up with this stuff, then obviously smarter people have already done it and are using it on a ragular basis. It’s just that I haven’t heard of anyone doing that yet.

So, here’s the idea. Let’s say you don’t like the way just chill out all day and nothing gets done. You want to change that. Then you start fabricating new memories about how you are really hard working and how you have your life under control. Just imagine a bunch of stories like that about your fabricated past and those stories will gradually become proper memories inside your head. Once that’s done, it’s going to start influencing the way you see your self and how you behave in the future.

If anyone has a name for this, let me know.

I have gradually turned myself into a more compassionate person by deliberately working on managing my emotions. I’m a lot less angry and far more open minded than me of ten years ago. There’s hope if you really want it.

I did it just by myself. I just kept critiquing myself after a negative interaction and trying to figure out why I got angry or frustrated. I still give in to that anger once in a while but I’ve gotten better.

I learned it’s easier for me to forgive when I’ve had proper sleep, actually. I also look at it from the other person’s side and think of what problems that person is going through and excuse them for whatever is frustrating me.

It’s easy to think of it like a shitty driver and getting angry at them. Why are they speeding? Could be a bathroom emergency. Could be meeting a loved one at the hospital. I don’t know, so I’m not gonna judge.

My belief is yes and no. Like many biological things it’s both nurture and nature.

Many people think that the way they act is their “personality”, when it seems more accurate that they have feelings/urges/likes/dislikes that manifest in a certain way and don’t know any other way to act.

And because they might not have known a “them” where they were able to channel those urges in another direction (because they’re young, or never tried, or have never seen an example at home to follow because their family is shitty or out of control) they think that manifestation IS their personality and is completely out of their control. Which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, because if you think something can never change you won’t even try, and then it CERTAINLY won’t change.

Changing how your own urges manifest is within your power. It’s not always easy, but it is within your power. (Mental illnesses do make it harder, as mental illness often messes with things like emotional control or executive function, both of which are helpful to have when changing how you react to things. But I have known people with mental illnesses who made an effort to try, and those who did not, and even then there’s a difference when it comes to actually “trying”, and even with mental illness those who try and learn and grow get further than those who do not…although it does not magically “cure” the illness.)

Basically, it’s possible to skill up when it comes to self-awareness, emotional control, and even understanding what is and isn’t a threat, and all those things change how various aspects of your personality manifest in the real world.

But, beneath that, there are “the big five” personality traits that seem “real” to the extent that science pursuing investigation into them. Those are:

* Openness to experience (includes aspects such as intellectual curiosity and creative imagination)
* Conscientiousness (organization, productiveness, responsibility)
* Extroversion (sociability, assertiveness; its opposite is Introversion)
* Agreeableness (compassion, respectfulness, trust in others)
* Neuroticism (tendencies toward anxiety and depression)

( https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/big-5-personality-traits )

People who are interested in and have the drive towards self-improvement can gain and practice skills that help them redirect behavior and urges within themselves that they don’t like. For example, maybe someone who gets angry really easily starts to recognize when they’re feeling like that, and instead of shouting at others and ruining relationships, they go out running and get some exercise. Or, the reverse–someone who never stands up for themselves learns to.

I don’t think it’ll eradicate some tendency towards certain personality traits–but it can bring them under control so you stop holding yourself back due to it.

I have a friend, and he and I have made opposite journeys when it comes to anger. He’s had to learn how to channel it back, tone it down. I’ve had to learn that my anger is “okay” to express sometimes. We were opposite ends of the spectrum and have each made progress more towards the center. We still default back to what seems our “inborn personality”, but we also have a lot of times when we act different ways because we’ve chosen to and have better control over ourselves. And when you do that all the time? Well, it’s a pattern, and it’s “you” just as much as anything is.

I’m generally soft-spoken IRL, and quiet, and a loner. But I’m also a writer, and because I wanted to progress in that Craft, I learned to write and “speak” with authority, because a writer who quivers and wrings their hands every other sentence and seems to lack confidence isn’t going to be interesting or compelling to read.

This is not a natural talent of mine–but I worked on it. And I worked. And I worked. And I did eventually gain skill in “sounding” confident in myself–to the extent it sometimes causes trouble because people expect one thing when they’ve read my writing, but get someone who is much quieter and much less talkative in person. Obviously, I have not put the same work into my in-person speech, and have not worked on dispelling my wallflower status there, but having seen how things turned around for me in writing because I kept trying, I imagine I could turn it around in person if I wanted to.

…IF I wanted to.

“Wanting” to change is probably the biggest thing when it comes to self-improvement. If you don’t like who you are and want to change it, it’s really important to cultivate that desire, because that DESIRE to change is the thing that keeps you going through the hard, frustrating parts of changing and gaining skills in self-understanding and self-control.

It’s possible to change your personality. Most people have several. You probably don’t act the same way towards your best friend as you do towards your boss or towards a random stranger. Sales people change their personalities to match the person they’re trying to sell to.

If you’re talking about changing lifestyles and habits, that’s absolutely possible too. It just takes a lot of determination and repetition.

It’s even possible to turn 360 degrees and walk in a different direction (as long as it’s a moon walk)

Yes.

My ex was a chill stoner who got radicalized on the internet and became an abusive alcoholic raging racist, then got sober but is still an angry right wing asshole.

I was selfish/self-centered as fuck as a teenager and gained patience and perspective over time, I think most people do change in that way, become more aware of others, nicer. Not everyone, obviously. But most.

More importantly, though I haven’t cared about Football in a decade, you’re on my anti-steelers watchlist 😈

But the answer is yes, though you really shouldn’t try & hit 360° (or 180° to be more accurate)

Your personality is much more than just how you treat situations, it’s what you like & dislike too for example