I want to know if people can change fundamental things about themselves. Not just behavior, which can obviously change. For example, many addicts change their behavior drastically. But notice how many of the alcoholics frame it: after 20 years of sobriety, they still say “I’m an alcoholic.” They have changed their behavior, but they (say they) haven’t changed that core aspect of their person.
I feel there are some aspects of your personality that you cannot change. (I am not sure if being an addict is one of those things, I don’t have experience in that area. I did quit smoking though!) I am a huge introvert and I don’t think I could ever change that. I can adopt extroverted behavior for limited amounts of time. I can work on things and practice and try to get better at dealing with people. But I am just papering over the issue. I can’t change my introversion; not even a little
What aspects of yourself can you change, and what ones can you not change?
I feel like some people who are racists can change quite a bit–this is because it’s just something they were taught, and as they have contact with other races (or gay people or whatever), their beliefs change. So some things can change if they are based on faulty evidence/learning.
However something like narcissism seems hard to change. I know a couple of these, and while they can manage the symptoms, the core does not change.
I ask because I have always been lazy. Very lazy. I am trying to change this but I cannot seem to create a strong work ethic, no matter what I do. I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 50+. I have been talking to my therapist about trying to improve my work ethic. In combination with therapy I am trying some evidence-based habit building (e.g. Atomic Habits). It doesn’t help that I don’t really care about my job. I coast through on writing ability and the bare minimum. I do well because many of the other people can’t write very well, and this particular job cannot be done by AI (yet). I feel a large amount of contempt for myself, but I can’t seem to change. It feels like my shitty work ethic is somehow a core part of my being, like introversion.
Anyway, feel free to relate your stories of how you successfully changed something big in your life. Tell us how you did it. Exercise? Personality? Did you change from being an asshole to a truly good person?
I don’t have anything specific to add but probably to really change, you need a real desire to change whatever it is. Kind of like breaking a cycle. Professionally, because of a lot of the bullshit I faced coming up that held me back longer than my talent demanded (still hit many milestones as ‘youngest’), I said I would do the opposite if I was ever in the position to do so. This was about ‘paying dues’ in the entertainment industry. I’ve stayed true to my philosophy when I was in position to do so. I look for talent not dues.
A narcissist does not know or care they have a problem, so they have no desire to change. You had a desire to stop smoking and did. Some things are very hard to overcome no matter how much desire you have to change. Most people here are very anti-Bible but there’s something in it that applies to everyone and is relevant to this discussion.
It’s essentially if something isn’t working for you go another direction. You can infinitely change directions when something isn’t working until you land on what does. But without a sincere desire for a change, there will never be one. Even with a sincere desire, it doesn’t guarantee any other results either. #life
As someone whose also ADHD and has struggled a bit with the laziness you describe, I think a lot of it comes down to what it takes my brain to focus. I’m an engineer, and I’ve found the different types of assignments I get can really affect me. If I have a relatively short task with a clear outcome expectation and a path that just needs to be executed, I’m a rock star.
Give me more long term assignments with muddier expectations, a vague definition of success, and an unclear timeline, I naturally just do the bare minimum to keep from getting fired. My brain just cannot figure out how to give a fuck. I just cannot for the life of me spend a lot of time in the “just fucking around” state when it relates to work. I get distracted by the outside world way way too easy when I don’t have an immediate task to focus on.
Breaking things down into smaller accomplishable tasks helps, but there’s only so much of that I can do. If I’m not actively doing something that clearly accomplishes an objective, my brain will not let me stay focused for long at all. It’s less about work ethic for me, and more about I just can’t focus on things that have vague objectives. I don’t know if that’s fixable or not, and at this point in my life, IDGAF.
I used to be a Republican. I think I have changed quite a bit in that way. Or maybe I was just putting on a front back then and didn’t change as much as actualized my real self.
I’m the same way and I consider myself extremely lucky to have fallen into a career as an EMS helicopter pilot. Everyone is always like “flying sounds cool” and yeah, it’s ok, but literally everything I do is a series of well defined tasks on a very short timeline and the only expectation is to maintain an acceptable margin of safety.
It’s an interesting question. I feel like I’ve worked hard to change some aspects of my life for the better but I’d be lying if some of those poor behaviors/attributes don’t pop up from time to time under stress or in a moment of anger.
Does that mean I’ve changed or am just better at not letting the part of me I don’t like our of It’s cage? I’m not really sure.
This sounds very familiar to me. I too have an engineering degree, although I never used it.
I have been working on breaking the bigger projects into smaller steps as well, with some (very limited) success. But again even when I succeed, it feels like papering over. I am overcoming my laziness, rather than changing the underlying problem.
I think I have have a sincere desire to change, although I could be fooling myself. I have been making half-assed attempts over the years. I did go to therapy for my shitty work ethic in grad school, then again in law school, then again at my law job. Nothing stuck though. It almost becomes tautological at a point–I must not have sincerely wanted to change, because if I did, I have would have changed. But I didn’t. QED. Also it kind of pushes the question back a step–how do I acquire a sincere desire to change?
Religion and politics are interesting cases. People do get out of cults, although it sometimes takes an intervention/deprogramming. I know some christians who would never, and could never, change their religion–it’s too much a part of their identity. I think people can switch their religious/political beliefs more easily if those beliefs aren’t a core part of their identity.
I think you also might not be challenged enough. Sometimes people need mountains of work to feel satisfied. I’ve told companies before that me being idle is never a good thing. It makes me bored and complacent which just makes me screw around all the time. It was just to suggest piling work on me.
I’m a huge procrastinator until I’m in it. I need tangible things like deadlines. I couldn’t really get into cash games for a long time because I was like, what’s the goal? What’s the point? I can’t play single hand video poker. It is so boring to me. I needed to 6 table limit hold em on Full Tilt, etc.
Before meds were prescribed for ADHD, I used to get straight As and Us in citizenship in elementary school. I’d ace a test you were supposed to finish in an hour in 20 minutes and then I’d just walk around the classroom talking to people. I was in the principal’s office a lot. A turn happened in maybe 7th grade but I probably didn’t become a mostly good enough citizen until at least 9th grade. But it also went class to class.
The common thread for me was being bored and not challenged. SRAs helped with that for a while until they didn’t lol. I just accept some things and try to work with them rather than against them.
I feel like im currently in a state of not just change, but profound change. Ive always been someone who needs to have control of a situation. Its led to me to be less spontaneous, less open. Im learning to let go through this separation process and its opening my eyes.
I had an unexpected breakthrough last night. I was writing out some fairly inane stuff when I came to the realization that finding true joy in my life is likely going to mean putting myself first, above all others, including my wife. Im a fairly selfless partner, and often choose things regardless of my own wants. Granting myself permission to do things that I want and to be happy with that wothout wondering if I should do something that makes someone else happy at the cost of my own is kind of a huge milestone. I havent really chosen myself since I was 15
Glad to hear it! Do you think it will be difficult, with backsliding, lots of effort, practice, etc.? Or was it more like a light bulb going off, and you think a corner has been turned.
Yeah welcome to my world. I’m an IT guy and I am fucking amazing at fixing shit under pressure and isolating a problem quickly and getting systems up and running when something suddenly goes south.
I’m also known for dragging out longer term, more nebulous projects with no defined timeline for literally months to years, sometimes to the point where an upgrade winds up getting pushed right into the next version, or a product becomes obsolete and no longer my problem. It doesn’t help that my whole company is small and dysfunctional and there’s little to no followup on things.
As far as the original question goes, a lot of things crash_face mentioned (addiction, intro/extroversion, narcissism etc.) are a function of brain chemistry. “Overcoming” those to the point where people would call you a changed person are probably more than anything a matter of consciously using workarounds/tricks to do and think of things differently than what your mind instinctively wants to, until it becomes second nature. It takes time, willpower and proper motivation, and many people will not have all of those available.
I do think a lot of innate qualities just can’t. Things like medication or training can mitigate or enhance their effect, but the qualities remain. Introvert/extrovert, type a/b, competitiveness, sex drive, intelligence, memory
It’s easier to find examples of drastic change in literature, TV or film than real life:
Dickens’ Scrooge
Dr. Seuss’ Grinch
Brad Pitt’s character in Ad Astra
Bill Murray’s in Groundhog Day
Jean Luc Picard
Boomer in BSG
I think this means we really want to believe it’s possible but in real life, it’s hard to say. It’s like Turing’s Imitation Game. Behavior is all you can see. And maybe we can’t even tell about ourselves. For me, sometimes one set of behaviors dominates, and other times a contradictory set does. I’m not sure which correspond to ‘me’.
Its gonna be both. I was thinking about it yesterday, and I think clarity, like grief, comes in waves. When that clarity wave goes out, there is cloudiness, confusion and uncertainty only able to see as far in front of me and whats right in front of my face, and when it comes in, I can see out to the stars and beyond, see the posibitilies, the openness, the joy. I dont know how long its been since ive seen that, but its been a while. I just gotta stay strong when the waves ebb
