You can change your personality if you want.

By deliberately adjusting thoughts and behaviors, anyone can change their personality.

Clinical psychologist and personality change researcher Shannon Sauer-Zavala at the University of Kentucky in the US says her research confirms that people can shape the personality traits needed to be successful and have the life they want.

This may sound contrary to the popular belief that each person's personality type puts them in a box, forcing them to choose partners, companions, and careers according to their inherent traits.

What is personality and what is not personality?

According to psychologists , personality is your characteristic way of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Changing your personality can help you live the life you want (Photo: SolStock/Getty Images).

Are you a pessimist or do you have a tendency to think negatively about life situations? Do you get angry when someone cuts you off in traffic or do you choose to believe that the person just happened to go the wrong way, perhaps because they were in a hurry to get to the hospital? Do you wait until the last minute or do you plan ahead and get to work?

Personality can be thought of as a summary of your answers to questions like these. Depending on your answers, you may be considered optimistic, empathetic, or trustworthy.

Research shows that all of the traits that account for a person's personality can be boiled down to five overarching traits , also known as the "Big Five."

Since the early 1930s, psychologists have literally searched dictionaries to pull out all the words that describe human nature and arrange them into categories with similar themes, for example the words "kind", "considerate", "friendly" were all placed in the same category.

They also found that thousands of words could be explained by grouping them into five traits: neuroticism, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness.

What is not character? People often feel hurt when others say bad things about their character and tend to defend themselves because they think that is their nature, their core value.

However, according to scientists, personality is not what you like, dislike, or prefer, nor is it your sense of humor. Personality is not your values ​​or what you consider important.

In other words , changing your 'Big Five' doesn't change who you are at your core. It's simply learning to respond to life situations with different thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Can you change your personality?

Can personality change? Personality is a person's characteristic way of thinking, feeling, and behaving. And although it may seem difficult to change personality, people do change the way they think, feel, and behave.

Let's say you're not a super-trustworthy person. If you start thinking "being on time shows others I respect them ," and start feeling proud when you arrive at an appointment before your friends, and make other arrangements to increase your punctuality like setting your alarm to wake up a little earlier… then you're exhibiting the traits of a trustworthy person.

If you maintain these changes in thinking, feeling and behaving for a while, great, you have actually become charismatic. Personality has changed!

Research data confirms this. In general, personality changes over the course of a person's life. As people age, they tend to be less prone to negative emotions, more positive, more conscientious, more focused on positive relationships, and less judgmental of others.

Of course, there are differences. Some people change a lot and others a little. Personality change happens faster if a person makes adjustments deliberately. With intentionality and focus, a person can change their personality in 20 weeks rather than 20 years.

Cultivate the personality traits that suit you best

Cognitive-behavioral techniques for personality change are fairly simple and can be done without a therapist.

The first element to consider is changing the way you think – this is the cognitive part. You need to understand your thoughts to determine whether they are keeping you stuck in a particular pattern of acting according to a particular personality trait.

For example, if you are thinking "people only care about themselves" then you will tend to act defensively when around them.

Next is the behavioral element. You need to be aware of your current behavioral tendencies and experiment with new ways of behaving. If you get defensive around others, they may react negatively to you.

For example, if they walk away or get angry with you, it shows that you can't trust them. Instead, if you try to act more openly, such as sharing with a co-worker that you've been given a difficult assignment, you'll likely see others change their behavior toward you.

These cognitive-behavioral strategies are very effective in promoting personality change, because personality is simply a person's characteristic way of thinking and behaving. Continuously changing your views and actions will lead to habits that, over time, will create the personality you desire.