Can we choose our personality?

Growing up - I would have believed myself to be a classic introvert. I kept to myself most of the time, was happy to be alone and often pondered things within my own reasoning.

I think even in high school, I was relatively introverted. I preferred to not be the centre of attention, to do things behind the scenes and my worst nightmare was hosting an event at my house.

Around this time I took the 16 personalities test - and I believe I got INTJ-A (which sounds about right).

In my first year of University - I think I started to open but a little bit more. I was more comfortable talking to random people, mainly because everyone was in a new situation so it didn’t quite feel as awkward. Also, I quickly realised that most of the other engineering kids were way more introverted than I was so I was the extrovert by default.

Then the pandemic happened. I moved back to my tiny little island, and pretty much only hung out with the same 5 friends for almost 2 years.

For me, it was great. I was in a fortunate enough situation where I could go to the beach on occasion, stay at hotels for a much lower cost than they usually go for and had friends to co-school with.

But when I returned back to in person school at UBC, I pretty much did the same things that I did at home. Went to school, talked to the same few friends and chilled at home. I had no problem with it at all.

But - every time I had to go to a situation where I would meet new people (school event or similar), I had social anxiety. I was so nervous, felt like I was going to be so awkward. It would just be so much easier if I didn’t go. And for this reason, I often avoided it. I never really went to events, never really tried new clubs or anything. Sure - by this point I was over school and working, so the combination of my time and mentality were against me but I still never tried it just because.

After graduating, I was a bit lost for what to do and the opportunity for my current job came. I was surprised I was offered the position, as it was to be 90% networking, talking to people and sales. Everything that I didn’t like about business.

Even now, when I tell people my background and current role - I often get a confused look followed by a, “Why?” My response is always the same, “It’s something that was way out of my comfort zone, so I said F-it we ball,” (as I’m sure you can imagine this is not verbatim for everyone).

And through going to countless networking events, more coffee chats than I can count and hosting events in two cities - I can safely say I no longer have social anxiety.

One day, I retook the 16 personalities test and got ENTJ-A. I’m now an extrovert?

How does that make any sense? I’m an introvert! I still need my alone time. I still need time to with my thoughts, and time to just be present. Nothing has really changed, I just have less anxiety than before?

But maybe more things have changed than I realised. Maybe I am more comfortable engaging in conversation, and talking to new, interesting people brings me so much energy.

Things whole story brings me to the point of this piece of this semi public journal. Can you choose your personality? And I mean like really choose, while still being your genuine self? Did I accidentally choose to be a bit more extroverted? Have I truly changed my personality, according to the test?

If this is something that isn’t innate, what other things can we change? Can we be someone who wakes up at 5 am and gets in a workout every morning despite the cold and darkness? Can we be someone who is more positive, despite all the atrocities going on in the world? Can we be someone who cares less about what others think of us, despite how much more public our lives are?

A whole lot of questions and very little concrete answers.

I think, if anything, there is one thing to learn from this: try new things and you’ll never believe what you discover about yourself.

See you in 2 weeks,
Max

Thanks for reading another edition of Two Steps Ahead. If you enjoyed it, let me know what you think and if you have any thoughts on how we can intentionally change ourselves. If you really liked it, share it with someone you think might also like it :)