Personality Isn't Permanent: Break Free from Self-Limiting Beliefs and Rewrite Your Story - Hardcover

Hardy, Benjamin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593083318 ISBN 13: 9780593083314

Publisher: Portfolio, 2020

Synopsis

If you have ever taken a test to identify your 'personality type', like the Myers-Briggs or Enneagram, you might be surprised to learn that such tests are not only unscientific, but are holding you back. The truth is, there's no such thing as a personality 'type', or a 'real you' that can only be unearthed through some process of self-discovery. Instead, your personality is something you can intentionally choose and create. Rather than being defined by the past and trapped in unresolved traumas, you can build your identity and internal narrative to serve the future you desire. In Personality Isn't Permanent, Dr. Hardy draws on psychological research to demolish the popular misconception that personality - a person's consistent attitudes and behaviours - is innate and unchanging. He offers practical, motivational advice to help you cultivate the traits and achieve the goals you always dreamed of. In Personality Isn't Permanent, you'll learn: Why you should never be the 'former anything'. Defining yourself by your past successes can be just as damaging to your potential to grow as being haunted by past failures. How to flip the script on negative memories and view them as something that happened for you, not to you. How to design a desired vision of your 'future self,' and make decisions based on what 'they' would want. How to tap into what psychologists' call 'pull motivation' by narrowing your focus on a single, definable, and compelling outcome. Why you should consistently put yourself in new situations that can initially be emotionally uncomfortable. Why you should measure your progress by how much you've grown, rather than by what you lack. Along the way, you'll hear fascinating true stories of radical self-transformation, like Vanessa O'Brien, who quit her corporate job and went on to obtain Guinness World Records for climbing the tallest mountains in the world; Andre Norman, who became a Harvard fellow after serving a fourteen-year prison sentence; Ken Arlen, who instantly quit smoking by changing his backstory; and Hardy himself, who transcended his childhood in a broken home, surrounded by issues of addiction and mental illness, to get his PhD and build a happy family. Filled with scientific strategies for reframing your past and designing your future, Personality Isn't Permanent is your practical guide to transcending your limitations and becoming the person you always wanted to be.

About this title

About the Author

Dr. Benjamin Hardy is an organizational psychologist and bestselling author of The Science of Scaling and Willpower Doesn't Work. His blog is read monthly by millions of people and has been featured on Forbes, Fortune, CNBC, Cheddar, Big Think, and many others. From 2015-2018, he was the #1 writer in the world on Medium.com and is a regular contributor to Inc. and Psychology. He and his wife Lauren adopted three children through the foster system in February 2018 and, one month later, Lauren became pregnant with twins, who were born in December of 2018. They live in Orlando.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Myth #3: Personality Comes from Your Past

"Because sometimes the past deserves a second chance."
—Malcolm Gladwell

A common scientific premise of many theories is known as “causal determinism”—the idea that everything that happens or exists is caused by antecedent conditions or events. From this view, people are determined—not influenced—by prior events, like one domino in a toppling chain.

In looking at human behavior, psychologists have come to agree that the best way to predict future behavior is by looking at past behavior. And for the most part, that perspective is validated over and over. Indeed, people seem quite predictable over time. The important question is, Why?

A dominant view of predictable behavior is that “personality” is a stable “trait” that is for the most part unchangeable. However, as will be shown throughout this book, this explanation is a gross and curate oversimplification, which ultimately leads to mindlessness, justification, and a lack of radical progress and intentional living.

Yes, people’s behavior can appear to be, and often is, predictable and consistent over time. But the reason for that consistency is not a fixed and unalterable personality. Instead, there are four far deeper reasons, which keep people stuck in patterns:

• They continue to be defined by past traumas that haven’t been reframed.
• They have an identity narrative based on the past, not the future.
• Their subconscious keeps them consistent with their former self and emotions.
• They have an environment supporting their current rather than their future identity.

These are the levers that drive personality—and whether you realize it or not, you can control them. When you change, reframe, or manage these levers, your personality and life can change in intentional and remarkable ways.

Edition details

• Publisher: Portfolio
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0593083318
• ISBN 13: 9780593083314
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256