Personality Isn't Permanent

Book excerpt: 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 The book includes true stories of intentional self-transformation—such as Vanessa O’Brien, who quit her corporate job and set the Guinness World Record for a woman climbing the highest peak on every continent in the fastest time; Andre Norman, who became a Harvard fellow after serving a fourteen-year prison sentence; Ken Arlen, who instantly quit smoking by changing his identity narrative; and Hardy himself, who transcended his childhood in a broken home, surrounded by issues of addiction and mental illness, to earn his PhD and build a happy family. 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.