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Changing Your Personality

By: Associate Editor

I had noticed recently that I was getting more and more frustrated at work when things are not going the way they were planned. I was starting to panic about not making a meeting on time; I was getting angry when people were wasting my precious time. Things came to a head a few months ago when I was driving home really angry about the day’s time wasting events and thinking about all the things I still had to do. I actually screamed for about 10 seconds as loud as I could. The feeling was great, to get rid of all that frustration in one go. It highlighted one thing to me: I was stressed and felt under pressure at work. About two minutes after the screaming session I told myself ‘I am a calm person and always remain calm in all circumstances’, I immediately felt better. I kept on saying this to myself every time I felt a little frustrated or under pressure and it seemed to work, the frustration would go.

This is not a great revelation. The world is starting to wake up to the fact that what we tell ourselves and what we think of ourselves will eventually come true. However when it actually works it seems a fog has been lifted. I kept on thinking about this and how to apply it in my life. I wrote down a list of traits I would like to have e.g. be funnier (I think it’s a great talent to be able to tell a story and elicit a genuine laughter), I would like to be able to tell stories that make people laugh. I then wrote down an ‘installation saying’ basically an affirmation. I repeat the installation saying until it starts to take hold. I noticed I began to see the process of what makes people funny, whereas before I could not see a process at all. I also noticed I was gaining confidence in starting to tell funny stories and was starting to tell more. Now, I am not saying I became Billy Connelly overnight but my stories got better and the reactions to those stories got better and a new trait was being born.

So, if you want to have a particular trait why not try installing a new one and uninstalling the old one.
The process of installing a new trait

1. Write down the traits to uninstall

Write down all the traits you don’t like about yourself. Putting it simply a trait is anything that you do all the time and has become part of your personality e.g. being serious, being angry, being miserable etc etc.

Once you have your list you will have your list of traits that you would like to install. So if you wrote on your list of traits you didn’t like: being angry all the time, you will presumably want to be a calm person. So the first list of traits you would like to install will be the opposite of the traits you didn’t like about yourself.

2. Write down an ‘Installation saying’

For each of the traits that you would like to install write down a saying for them. For example:

If you want to be a calmer person, your saying might be ‘I am a calm person in all situations’
If you want to be confident, your saying might be ‘I am a confident person in every area of my life’.

3. Looking for the process

Saying it alone does not work. I could say ‘I am the funniest man alive’ all day but it won’t make me funny. You will begin to see the processes of each trait you want to install. For example, the process of being funny:

Being relatively confident when speaking
Being able to tell stories in front of groups
Embellishing the story
Testing it out on colleagues and friends
Looking for the funny side of life

If you have chosen a trait to be more outgoing the process might be

Go out more
Talk to a few more people than you normally would
Be as confident as your mind will allow you (this will grow in time)
Talk a little more than you normally would

4. Practice in every situation

Whenever you get the chance, practice your new trait. As an example I told a story to my wife the other day which she thought was funny, I then embellished it a little and told my work colleagues who then told a few other people and when I was asked again about it, it was polished, embellished and quite funny. I am now a little more confident with telling stories, not just funny ones but stories in general.

It Takes time

Don’t be frustrated or disheartened if this does not work overnight. It has taken you about 15 – 100 years to install the traits you have just now. However I will say that if you work at it you can install a new trait in a matter of months, and that is definitively worth the work.

If I said to you ‘pay me £1000 and I’ll get you to be the person you want to be’ would you do it? If you said yes, then e-mail me (only joking), you can do this all for free by reading blogs like this and by thinking about what you really want. The main problem people have with changing is knowing what they want to change to.

You can change anything you want about yourself no matter what your circumstances are. You need belief in yourself and the determination to go for it. I believe in you and everyone reading this blog believes in you now go grab your determination and get started.