We often treat our personalities as if they were coded into us at birth.
“I’m just not a morning person.”
“I hate small talk.”
“I’m too anxious for that.”
We say these things to explain away our discomfort. But what if these aren’t hard truths at all, just well-practiced habits? That’s the central idea of Me, But Better by Olga Khazan, that our personalities are far more malleable than we think.
Personality isn’t who you are deep down. It’s what you do automatically via some brain patterns that run on autopilot. It’s how you react when you’re tired, the way you handle uncertainty, and how easily you reach out or withdraw.
Khazan quotes Borges who once said that personality is “a mirage maintained by conceit and custom.” A mirage may not be entirely real but it can still shape how we move through the desert. And if it’s a mirage, maybe it can be reshaped too.
Psychologists usually describe personality through five traits: extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience. About half of these traits are influenced by our genes. The rest comes from the company we keep, the jobs we do, and the habits we repeat.
Extroverts draw energy from people and action. They tend to be more optimistic simply because they put themselves in situations where good things can happen (think parties, conversations, collaborations).
Khazan writes that even behaving like an extrovert for short bursts can have lasting effects. You don’t have to transform overnight. Just talking to someone new at lunch or volunteering to speak up in a meeting can nudge your brain to associate these small risks with reward. Introverts often cling to the idea of being “authentic” by avoiding these moments, but authenticity isn’t a license for stagnation. It’s about making choices that serve your goals and not just your comfort.
Agreeable people are kind, cooperative, and trusting, but often at their own expense. They say yes when they should say no, and end up carrying more emotional labor than others.
Khazan points out that this is one trait people rarely try to change for themselves. You can become more agreeable through deliberate empathy i.e. trying to genuinely understand others, even those you don’t like but you also need boundaries so you don’t end up being agreeable at the cost of your own wellbeing.
The balance is tricky: too little agreeableness and you come off abrasive; too much and you risk resentment. Practicing empathy doesn’t mean being a doormat. It means remembering that other people have their own invisible battles, even when you can’t see them.
If there’s one trait that predicts success across health, wealth, and relationships, this is it. Conscientious people follow through. They keep their promises, meet deadlines, and are organized not because it’s fun, but because it reduces chaos later.
Khazan says you can build conscientiousness like a muscle by starting small and staying consistent. Write your goals down. Review them daily. And use episodic future thinking: imagine your future self in detail like what you’re wearing, eating, doing. This vivid imagination connects today’s effort to tomorrow’s reward. The key isn’t intensity but continuity. A little progress every day beats a burst of motivation once in a while.
Emotional stability is the opposite of neuroticism, the habit of worrying too much, too often. Neurotic people, Khazan writes, have a gift for “snatching dissatisfaction from the jaws of happiness.”
The difference isn’t that stable people never feel anxious; they just recover faster. They notice the wave of stress, name it, and let it pass. When you stop fighting your emotions, they stop fighting back. Just recognizing how anxiety feels in your body, the heart rate, the shallow breath, the mental noise, creates a gap wide enough to choose a calmer response.
This trait is often mistaken for liking travel or art, but it goes deeper. It’s curiosity and the willingness to be surprised. Open people tend to enjoy abstract ideas, recall their dreams vividly, and are comfortable with ambiguity.
Openness is closely tied to creativity and even mathematical thinking, because both rely on pattern recognition. But like any trait, it can be overdone. Too much openness without grounding can tip into seeing patterns that aren’t real like superstition, false connections, or even paranoia.
To cultivate openness, make small experiments: read something outside your comfort zone, revisit an old hobby, or try a genre of music you’ve never listened to. Each act is a reminder that life has more flavors than the ones you’re used to tasting.
Neuroticism breeds inaction. It keeps us trapped in loops of “what if” and “if only.” It’s not just a bad mood, it’s a constant hum of unease about things that happened and things that could.
Khazan points out that upbringing often shapes how easily we get stuck in these loops. Some people inherit the habit of worrying, not the genes for it. Getting out of it requires something counterintuitive i.e. easing off the pressure. When we stop striving to control every outcome, the noise quiets down. Like trying to sleep, effort itself becomes the obstacle.
Change begins not in deep self-analysis but in small experiments. Act first, feel later. Pretend to be the kind of person you want to be, and your emotions often catch up.
If you struggle with motivation, connect the task to something bigger. Angela Duckworth calls this seeing the drudgery as part of a larger life project.
Filing your taxes isn’t about paperwork, it’s about financial clarity.
Finding a home isn’t about brokers and forms, it’s about entering a new phase of life.
Personality grows where your environment allows it to. Spend time with people who stretch you. Borrow their habits until they feel like your own. An interesting way to understand your personality is to try the “Sweet, Sad, Hero” test. Think about what feels sweetest in your life right now, what makes you quietly sad when you look back, and who you see as a hero (someone whose values mirror the kind of person you’d like to be). That trio says more about your personality than any quiz ever will.
Maybe personality isn’t a wall we’re meant to live inside. Maybe it’s a doorway we can keep walking through, each time emerging a little more ourselves.
I run a startup called Harmonize. We are hiring and if you’re looking for an exciting startup journey, please write to jobs@harmonizehq.com. Apart from this blog, I tweet about startup life and practical wisdom in books.