Can you change who you are?

Question

Willingly?

For instance, I am hyper and a little eccentric. I also have a huge temper, and these traits annoy the heck out of people which cause them to get mad at me. My question is, can a person who has had certain personality traits for their whole life diminish them? Can they become a new person all out of their own will?

Answer 1

Well I have 7 personalities

Answer 2

Yes. I have done it a lot over the past like, 5 years!... about 14 times! I used to be a little hyperactive myself, and then I became more and more serious over the years. Sometimes its for the best though, to make a better me. Sort of like - a psychological development to my personality. For me, personally, it's worked - and I've always been happy with what I've got. But I've only done this in different social environments if something was not exactly feeling 'right' to me. I think we force ourselves to change around different situations or people. Behavior and Attitude seem to be connected. So, If you changed one, then the other is altered a little too.

Sometimes though, it can be a bad thing. Especially if you changed something about yourself - and it began giving a negative impression on others. I know a lot of people who have done this. They've lost a lot of friends this way.

Answer 3

I think you can change an attitude, a reaction...not really the person. I have a bad temper as well and I can get really mad. Actually I think there is nothing wrong with it, we are all different, the only problem is how you deal with it. If when I get angry I would start screaming to everybody, I would very probably end up without friends and, also, hate myself for being not respectful to people I love. After analyzing what makes me mad, when, with whom, etc,etc...I had learn (a little bit) when to stop a bad conversation if goes to nowhere or when to leave a place if you see yourself "burning" of anger, I take a long walk and, when I feel calmer, I speak with that person in a better way and, if necessary, I apologize for my sudden leaving , but maybe better than saying or doing things you may regret later and you don't really mean. I don't think we can change our personality, but we can deal with our feelings in different ways, so we choose how to express them, even when they are the same.

Answer 4

Well.. I think you can for one reason. YOU KNOW what you want to change.

Let's just look at the temper part. Before you "blow up" ask yourself....is it REALLY that bad? Is it worth the aggravation? Chances are you'll calm down before you regret saying something. I used to do the same thing and drove people up the wall. But instead of just reacting...I took a second to think about it....and by that time it was gone. I went to my high school reunion a while back....they kept commenting how calm I was...

Eccentric is no big deal....lil quirks make us what we are...are you using that term to explain your temper?

As far as hyper....do you mean that literally? Some folks are high strung naturally....could be another "term" you use to explain your temper.

No one's expecting you to become a nun...just learn to relax and keep your cool....and you'll amaze yourself

Answer 5

It helps that you realize that these things can be a problem to other people. The first thing that you need to realize is that that's not who you are, that is only your personality and you can change your personality whenever you're ready. If you change clothes, it doesn't change what you are; it only changes what you're wearing. Thinking like this will help you to not be so attached to the personality that you are so accustomed to having. Once you have lost this attachment, you will find that giving the right responses in given situations will be facilitated by your will and desire to have a better personality. As you habitually respond with this new cultivated personality, you will find that you are becoming a "new person", so to speak.

Good luck!

Answer 6

Sure you can! For instance I use to be " I never took crap from no one" I had an attitude problem always answering back not holding back when I was being insulted. But now I change, I hold my self back, I swallow my anger in other words I take deep breaths and ignore what ever it is that bothered me. I also use to be shy and quiet, AAA! Not any more the embarrassments and shyness is over and gone for good. Now who ever I want to be friends with is or talk to I do.I ver came my fear of shyness. I normally was shy talk to no one only if they talk to me I would answer and turned red at h=the same time. I had little friends,15 years ago, I'm 28 now! It is you who makes the decisions, And you choose who and how you want to be.

Answer 7

Will? No. There is no such thing. It's a word for that quality that no one really wants to look at closely to find out what it is.
Directly, it is the choice that the pain is worth the goal.
Drug addicts change far harder things than hyperactivity, eccentricity, and being tempermental, everyday.
It just has to be worth the pain/discomfort of doing so. Is it?
Have you suffered enough from it?
Right now it is worth it. The people around you, their feelings about it, their own peace and quiet, their own dealings with you are not sufficient to make the change worth it.

When you've suffered enough, when enough people have withdrawn from you, to whatever degree they do, you'll change, by choice, because the loss of what you get out of being eccentric, tempermental, and hyper will not be worth it anymore.

Of course, it is possible to think ahead, look forward to potential future pain, see what is in store for you in the years ahead and react to that ahead of time, thus changing early.

That is what being human is about. We can create symbols for what does not exist yet and treat them as real. You can see where these traits are taking you, and the question is, do you like where you are headed?

Change direction...

Good luck.

Answer 8

Its very hard, impossible for many.

As you get older you will learn to love who you are and when you do others will too. I was a very hyper teenager, to the point where i would get obnoxious and annoy people, Ive calmed down a lot now in my twenties through self control.

Why don't you hang around people like you, sounds like you like to have fun, there are plenty like you out there.

As for the temper, get a punching bag or something, works for me.

Answer 9

Yes Dear, You can change who you are. Think about it. There are a lot of people in this world who are not as they use to be. Just how one would go about it has many different answers. I suppose it depends on what you were trying to accomplish as to how you would go about it. I'm sure it can be as simple as changing the way you dress all the way up to years of study of complex issues like chemistry and human science and how you can apply it to your own life and changing your perception of how you view the universe and world we live in.

Answer 10

Yes, you can do anything you want to if you put your mind to it. Especially if the way you behave is effecting your relationships with people. It sounds as though if you don't do something about it, you may be a very lonely person. Good luck on that. I hope you can direct your energy in a different place.

Answer 11

Well, maybe you can't radically change your personality without feeling somehow bad or uncomfortable, but for sure you can modify some aspects of it.
I used to be very mean an eccentric, I said whatever I thought plain and straight without bother about who it would be taken. Everything changed when a boy I felt in love with told me that if I wasn't so "acid" he would have started dating me... tat hurt me so badly that I decided to change, not for him but for myself, and it worked very well! Fist, I tried to see who others saw me, what aspects of myself I wouldn't like to see in my friends, and just deciding that I deserved better in life and I was going to get it, eventually.
Good luck!