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Have you ever been successful in changing your personality?
61–70 of 83 posts
Re: Have you ever been successful in changing your personality?
#62You can change this trait! I promise you, you're not stuck with it. I'm about your age and I was a huge procrastinator and underachiever until only 2-3 years ago. Since then, mostly through "grit", I was able to acquire a job as a senior software engineer, despite having no degree, and not even owning a computer until I was 23. I suspect you are like me in that you are much more interested in novelty and idea generat…
One activity where 'one thing at a time' doesn't work: research/invention. Edison was the classic multi-project guy: many research projects, most of them at any one time stuck waiting for him to find some way to progress them.
Serious researchers are forced to work like that. Some of them manage to apply it to the rest of their lives too. Don't ask me how, though :-(
Re: Have you ever been successful in changing your personality?
#63Is your personality type 'INTP', perchance? INTPs have these constant internal battles. We're good at concentrating and love working in the realm of ideas. However, we're often an impractical lot and procrastination is pretty rampant among the other INTPs I know. The biggest problem, I think, is that we just really suck at perceiving the passage of time, and the daydreaming, writing, or discussion of ideas is often r…
My basic conclusion about the "personality" issues regarding INTPs is that INTPs think way too much about personality. Once I stopped over-analyzing everything as it related to my "personality traits" and how I felt so weird and different from the general population, life got so much easier. Isn't there a saying something like . . . "Humility isn't thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less." That said…
I'd like to second this. Obsessive self-analysis can be a real problem. Over the years, I've learned to take myself less seriously, and my life has definitely improved because of that. People are still tedious, but my tolerance has improved.
Re: Have you ever been successful in changing your personality?
#64Read "The Path of Least Resistance." Take notes. Read it again.
All other tips are just surface bandaids, attempting to cover up the real problem. Your symptoms are symptoms, not problems in and of themselves. No amount of commitment, tips, hacks, or self-badgery is going to change you if you don't attack the root of the problem.
As Einstein said, "Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them."
Re: Have you ever been successful in changing your personality?
#65My "hyperbrain" article series might be of interest to you. I go into quite a lot of detail to provide techniques that help with some of the characteristics of smart, highly distracted, obsessive people like us. Start here:
http://inter-sections.net/2008/08/28/hyperbrain-owners-manua...
Re: Have you ever been successful in changing your personality?
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wasn't there to party, either. I was mostly hanging out with 50 year old salarymen! Frat boys on spring break in Cancun have got nothing on Japanese middle managers. I'll never understand how the Japanese have achieved the longest average lifespan. I'm a lightweight... if I had gotten wrapped up in the typical asian expat tweaker scene I'd probably already be dead.
Heh, ah memories, I can somewhat relate. I was a student in Japan, but spent a bunch of time hanging out with Taiwanese business men in southern China after that. The first block of time I spent there (relatively short) I couldn't speak mandarin at all, and it was pretty miserable experience. The second block of time I spent there, my mandarin had gotten pretty decent, and so I was able to flip everything into a lear…
If you're an American living abroad, 6 months is the minimum, and you should really stay at least 9 months. Why? Language is everything.
Seriously - in most places sufficiently different from the US to be interesting, language will be your first and most formidable barrier, on the other side of which lies one of the most satisfying experiences you've ever had. It'll take 6 months after you arrive to cross the language barrier. Your life will rock afterward, so plan at least 3 months (more is better) to enjoy the awesome part.
Example: I noticed I'd crossed the barrier when I managed to land a gig drumming for a Tokyo funk band, and I was the only Gaijin in the bar at our first gig). From then on, life in Japan was awesome. I could call up and organize scuba diving trips in obscure bays on my own, I could pick up Japanese girls using only Japanese (try that!)
Fun.
Re: Have you ever been successful in changing your personality?
#67It takes 30 days to form a new habit. You just have to get there. Routine is the key. And early mornings are the best, because you never have the excuse to say "I've had a shitty day at work, all I want is a pizza and a beer". For me it was the gym. Every morning (almost!) I roll in there at 6am before I'm even really awake. "Alright, lads" I say, "alright", they reply, it's always the same crowd, they are very serio…
It's just about you. You need to surround yourself with people trying to improve themselves as well. Find a club for exercising or music or something - a place where everyone is dedicated to the task. It's one of the most powerful motivators.
Re: Have you ever been successful in changing your personality?
#68Two pointers:
1. Desperation helps. "Necessity is the mother of all invention." If you have to do something, you will. I was never able to launch products on time until I started taking preorders, promising a firm date, and guaranteeing we'd ship by that date. If I negotiate a project management contract, I like to negotiate for "guaranteed xyz milestones by zyx for abc pay" terms. Part of my pay attached to getting things done on time. I once put in 60 hours of work over 3 days to launch on time. (work 20 hours, sleep 4 hours, work 20, sleep 4, work 20, then sleep for like a whole day) (lots and lots and lots of caffeine, half delirious, but we launched on time) (also - not recommended).
2. Manipulate your environment. People tell me I have iron willpower a lot, and they admire that, etc, etc. Bullshit. I try to eat well, but if I have a bunch of chocolate and cookies and junk in my home, I eat it. So? I buy a bunch of clean, healthy, easy to eat food with low barriers. Want to jump on something tomorrow? Make a to-do list for the next day the night before, line up all the materials I need, and make a note, "Don't turn on computer until making these 3 unpleasant tedious phone calls." And so on.
Two very related, highly recommended posts:
http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/barriers-are-your-...
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/07/habit-change-is-lik...
Building your environment so success is easy and failure is hard helps a lot. It's hard to brute force willpower yourself against your environment. Changing your environment to suit your goals helps a lot.
Re: Have you ever been successful in changing your personality?
#69It takes 30 days to form a new habit. You just have to get there. Routine is the key. And early mornings are the best, because you never have the excuse to say "I've had a shitty day at work, all I want is a pizza and a beer". For me it was the gym. Every morning (almost!) I roll in there at 6am before I'm even really awake. "Alright, lads" I say, "alright", they reply, it's always the same crowd, they are very serio…
You absolutely can change this, but 30 days is optimistic. I was like this too, and it took YEARS to really break - not break to the point where I was successfully forcing myself to do these things, but break to the point where it was part of who I was. That said, you want to structure things so that in 30 days (or less) you can get some tangible feedback that the changes are working. The best concrete piece of advice I can give is not to be too ambitious at first. Don't set your alarm an hour earlier tomorrow, just set it 10 minutes earlier, and then increase from there.
Re: Have you ever been successful in changing your personality?
#70Is your personality type 'INTP', perchance? INTPs have these constant internal battles. We're good at concentrating and love working in the realm of ideas. However, we're often an impractical lot and procrastination is pretty rampant among the other INTPs I know. The biggest problem, I think, is that we just really suck at perceiving the passage of time, and the daydreaming, writing, or discussion of ideas is often r…
wow! everything you described - is me.
"The biggest problem, I think, is...just to stop there" - i am ashamed to admit it, but yes that is me. everything you wrote is me. Actually, I know that if I take up a task, I do it completely(unless there is something that incites me,which usually happens when I am half way done with my task,but not completed - my visualization has come true, but not tested,incomplete functionality etc.) I didn't know there was a word for it. thanks!