Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change

Is it really possible to change your entire personality in a year? An award-winning journalist experiments with her own personality to find out—and reveals the science behind lasting change.

Olga Khazan was spiraling toward an existential crisis. Though she treasured her loving relationship and dream job, her neurotic personality often left her snatching dissatisfaction from the jaws of happiness. Lately, her brittle disposition felt ready to shatter under the weight of just one more thing—but could she really change her entire personality?

Personality consists of five sliding-scale traits: extroversion (how sociable you are), conscientiousness (how self-disciplined you are), agreeableness (how empathetic you are), openness (how receptive you are to new things), and neuroticism (how anxious you are). Research shows you can alter these traits by acting like the kind of person you’d like to be. In Me, But Better, Olga embarks on a year-long experiment to see if it’s possible to start “radiating joy” instead of dwelling in dread—trying everything from Zip-Zap-Zopping toward extroversion in improv to surfing her way to openness, even if she spends more time wiping out than hanging ten.

Sharply witty and deeply fascinating, Me, But Better candidly explores what it means to live a fulfilling life, and how to keep growing, no matter how uncomfortable it feels.

Olga Khazan is a staff writer for The Atlantic and the author, previously, of Weird. She is a two-time recipient of journalism fellowships from the International Reporting Project and the winner of the 2017 National Headliner Award for Magazine Online Writing.