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

Psychologist and bestselling author Benjamin Hardy, PhD, debunks the pervasive myths about personality that prevent us from learning—and provides bold strategies for personal transformation

In Personality Isn’t Permanent, Dr. Benjamin Hardy draws on psychological research to demolish the popular misconception that personality—a person’s consistent attitudes and behaviors—is innate and unchanging. Hardy liberates us from the limiting belief that our “true selves” are to be discovered, and shows how we can intentionally create our desired selves and achieve amazing goals instead. He offers practical, science-based advice to for personal-reinvention, including:

• Why personality tests such as Myers-Briggs and Enneagram are not only psychologically destructive but are no more scientific than horoscopes
• Why you should never be the “former” anything--because defining yourself by your past successes is just as damaging to growth as being haunted by past failures
• How to design your current identity based on your desired future self and make decisions here-and-now through your new identity
• How to reframe traumatic and painful experiences into a fresh narrative supporting your future success
• How to become confident enough to define your own life’s purpose
• How to create a network of “empathetic witnesses” who actively encourage you through the highs and lows of extreme growth
• How to enhance your subconscious to overcome addictions and limiting patterns
• How redesign your environment to pull you toward your future, rather than keep you stuck in the past
• How to tap into what psychologists call “pull motivation” by narrowing your focus on a single, definable, and compelling outcome

Filled with strategies for reframing your past and designing your future, Personality Isn’t Permanent is a guide to breaking free from the past and becoming the person you want 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: 272