The way you think about your personality is holding you back in life

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No matter who you are, we all have one thing in common: a complete and utter fascination with personality. After all, there is a reason why there are so many personality tests and personality types marketed to us everywhere. 

But what if our fascination with personality and our efforts to understand and make sense of our own personality is actually keeping us from reaching our full potential?

In this coffee chat, we discuss the myths that surround personality, the limiting beliefs that emerge from those myths, and how you can understand yourself and others while reaching your full potential. 

Key take-aways: 

• Your personality does not dictate what you can and cannot do. 
• Your personality can change across time. 
• Your personality is a strong tendency - it is not set in stone. 

If you'd like to know more about your personality, you can find a validated and reliable test here.

If your work is taking over your life and you struggle to unplug in the evening or even the weekend, we'd love to help you create a work-life balance that works for you!

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and catching up
• 4:14 Today's topic: Personality myths that hold you back
• 8:21 What is personality?
• 9:53 The Big 5 personality dimensions
• 20:47 Myth #1: Your personality tells you who you are
• 24:27 Myth #2: Your personality does not change
• 31:31 Myth #3: Your personality determines what you can and cannot do
• 34:51 Myth #4: Your personality is the same across contexts
• 36:54 Wrap up & Outro

Transcript

Like, as you said, you know, we put people in boxes because that makes it easier for us to predict their behavior. Hello, everyone. You're listening to the Happy 9 to 5 podcast where we invite you to join our Friday coffee chats and talk about everything work life, balance, well-being, confidence and creating a healthy, happy and fulfilling workplace.

We are Eleni and Tina, founders of the Happy 9 to 5 work Psychologists, besties and hosts of this podcast. So sit back, grab your favorite brew and enjoy. Welcome back everyone, to another Friday coffee chat. We hope you're doing well. We are sitting here and basically this is the second time we're starting this episode because we realized I forgot to hit the record button and thank God we realized only like already, like 5 minutes in, we realize that.

So yeah. But basically we were.

Chatting.

About that. We're sitting here, we're having a mint. Tea is really foggy outside, hot, hot weather.

You know, and the fact that I don't have any motivation when the weather is like this.

Like, I don't know why, but it affects me so bad. I feel like it's also the fact that, you know, like in the fall, you kind of have this whole, like romanticizing of it, you know.

Ho ho and la la la weather or whatever, and all of these like tick like things.

But like with after the holidays, like especially end of January and the.

Whole of February, I'm not like I don't know.

It does get to the point. I feel like January for me is peak winter. Yeah, for some reason.

Yeah.

So that is still fine. And I'm motivate to it and I feel inspired and all of that and kind of goes into February as well. But in February I do start thinking like yeah, can I do look forward to someone else?

Like for me it's mostly the spring. Like, you know, when you get out and it smells like spring and you kind of feel like, Oh, it's coming, you know, like you kind of feel like it's starting to warm up a bit.

Like the first few warm. Yes, Yes. It's like it smells like spring.

Yes, that's it.

I don't know why, but like, I have the feeling that, you know, people who don't understand how the seasons smell.

Yeah. It's like.

How can you not? Winter has a smell. Countries. Countries have countries out.

About exactly.

Like there's a certain like, especially if you go in the Mediterranean. They all have a very specific aroma.

You know, you go.

So when I was younger and I would travel, I mean, honestly, I say when I was younger, it's actually the same level as well. Okay. And we would like I would travel to Greece by airplane and typically we would the airplane would land. Yeah. And then you don't get into this like closed I don't know how it's like tunnel thing that goes that takes you straight from the airplane into the airport.

No you step outside and then there are just these stairs and you have to, you know, so you're outside and then you go take the gasoline. This smell of like, I don't know, but I just know, you know, I would like go up and then it would always be warmer and sunny or just, I don't know, different to Germany or, for example, I would like, you know, that first step that I would take outside the airplane and just like, take it all in and breathe it all in, all the kerosene and, you know, But anyway, it's not just kerosene that is.

It's the.

Vibe. It is.

You can smell all the heat.

Yes. Yes.

And it's just I'm like, it smells like Greece and I have arrived and it's beautiful. Yeah. I'm so happy you shared.

This experience.

Because not not everyone. Yeah, I know. I don't know. They're like, in Italy.

Like how, you know, like how snow smells.

Or like, Yeah.

Oh, it smells like a storm is coming. Yeah. So, like when you.

The summer storms. Exactly. And they just.

Know, you know. Anyway so.

So much about how seasons smell. But you guys we have a very special.

Episode.

For.

You today.

Which is basically we're going to go into how the way that we think about ourselves, whether that is, you know, predefined by nature, let's say, or whether we can actually change it and we're going to talk about personality. So that's something new on the podcast because I think we didn't really touch.

Upon if we have personality at all.

But as psychologist.

We feel like.

How can we not talk about personality, you know? And yeah, so this episode is going to be about personality myths that are actually keeping you from reaching your full potential and things that we know from science and you know from psychology in general about how sometimes we tend to find an excuse behind personality instead of actually putting in the work.

And also about others as well. You know, like sometimes it's much easier to say, Oh, but they're just like that. That's their way of being. They can't help it.

Even though maybe they can.

There is so much to say about personality. And I remember before I started studying psychology, like back in the day, I remember I was so interested in personality. And I think this is something that a lot of us share. There's something fascinating about it. It's it's it is fascinating to try to put people into a certain box because it helps us understand them or we at least believe that it helps us understand them, understand ourselves.

And as you said, it's like, oh, this person is like this. So therefore they are acting in this in this way. And we also apply this reasoning to ourselves as well. And on the one hand, it can be very useful and an easy heuristic to kind of make sense of why we are the way we are, why we act, the way we act, and what others all the way they are.

But as he said, at the same time, there's a lot of kind of limiting beliefs oftentimes, and a lot of myths surrounding personality, because guess what? We're all human. And as humans we are very complex and it is very difficult to just put any person into a certain box and say they are exactly like that and this is their personality.

So this determines everything exactly who that they are, that they will do or will be able to achieve.

Exactly. And I think this whole idea of personality types, you know, we kind of go into like, as you said, you know, we put people in boxes because that makes it easier for us to predict their behavior. Yeah. You know, so we're like, oh, but they're a Type A personality. Like they're going to seek conflict even though that person may actually not seek conflict.

Like, sure, they maybe have a a competitive tendency. Right. Or they, they really are high achievers in that sense. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the way that they will approach you is always in a conflictual way or, you know, in a very competitive way in that sense. So I feel like there's a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to personality traits and when it comes to personality types.

Yeah, in general. So the fact that we have types and we have these boxes that we put people in and we're going to go into, yeah, how all of these, let's say, ideas that we have about personality are actually limiting us from understanding change, from also seeing change in others, but also believing in ourselves and in others as well.

Also kind of see ourselves in having as having control.

Exactly.

Over our lives, over our actions and over, you know, where we are going. We of course, we cannot control everything, but we do have oftentimes more control than we believe we do. But before we dive into, you know, exploring the myths about personality that might be keeping you back from achieving your full potential, let's talk about what personality actually is.

Okay.

Let's define it.

Let's define it, because probably everyone has an idea of what it is. But let's just make sure, you know, we have we worked with one coven definition here. So personality is defined by the American Psychological Association as enduring characteristics and behavior that comprise a person's unique adjustment to life, including major traits, interests, drives, values, self-concept, abilities, and emotional.

That's a very global definition, if you think about it like it encompasses all of our psychology, basically, you know, our needs, our values, the way we think about ourselves, our behaviors. So and I but I think the most important thing is this idea of enduring characteristics, right? So it's just something that is with you for a long period of time, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you will always act as you are characterized by.

It's your natural tendencies.
Exactly.

It's the natural tendencies that you have within you and certain behaviors or certain ways of thinking and acting might come more natural to you than others. This is what it is.

So let's explore the five personality traits, the five personality dimensions. Maybe because I think that that's we're taking a bit more of a dimensional approach here because we really, you know, kind of want to take you a bit away from this whole idea of boxes of four types and focus more on personality as different dimensions that you can score high on or low on.

It's really a spectrum. Exactly. And more than a box.

You know, I know that this sounds super complex and it's much easier to just say, Oh, but that's just my personality type. But in order to understand someone's psychology and also our own psychology, it's very important to kind of shift away from this idea of types into an idea of a continuum where you can score low or high and you can also importantly move on this spectrum.

And you can be in the middle as well. You can be at the Oh yeah.

I have a personal.

Story about that. Yeah.

So let's yeah, let's take it from the top first. We have extroversion and that is basically a personality trait that characterizes where you take your energy from, whether you take it from other people, not in the sense of like energy, vampire, but whether you actually recharge when you are surrounded by other people or you are actually recharging where you are by yourself.

Yes. And counter to very popular opinion, being an extrovert or being an introvert does not mean you're shy or you're not shy.

Or socially anxious.

Social anxiety or not, this is really just where do you get your energy exactly?


I think. I think we had a post on TikTok.

Yes.

And on a year ago or like a couple of years ago about, you know, how the difference is between being an introvert and being socially anxious. And it's crazy how much misconception there is about that, like the fact that, you know, just because you enjoy spending time on your own with your hobbies or with yourself and you get recharged from that, that doesn't necessarily mean that you cannot be around people or that you feel awkward being around people.

So this whole idea of, yeah, I don't like being around people because I'm an introvert, there's nuance to that.

There is a lot of nuance to that. And it's important nuance as well because being an introvert doesn't necessarily mean that it will negatively impact how you experience everyday life, whereas being socially anxious can create a lot of distress for people who experience it.

So talking about distress, the next one, the next trend that is, you know, part of the five big personality traits is neuroticism and neuroticism is quite interesting because on the one end of the spectrum, you have highly neurotic people and on the other end of the spectrum you have emotionally stable people. So basically neuroticism is the extent to which you are emotionally stable and prone to feeling distressed.

So for instance, that kind of goes into saying how you react to different stressors, like how much they impact you naturally. So whether you are somebody who is very, you know, prone to feeling a lot of distress when something occurs or like when a stressor occurs, regardless of how intense that stressor is. So maybe if you're like highly neurotic, even the smallest stressor is going to affect you to some extent.

And if you're emotionally stable, maybe that's going to affect you less.

It's really about how quickly do you get thrown off balance.

Exactly.

When something happens. The third Big five personality trait is agreeableness. And agreeableness is really about the tendency or your tendency to act in a cooperative and unselfish manner. So again, on the one end of the spectrum, you have highly, highly agreeable people who really value cooperation and working together and well, not be selfish. And on the other end of the spectrum, you have highly agreeable people who just don't value cooperation.

Maybe as much as others, maybe they don't mind or they don't shy away from conflict and so on.

Exactly.

And you have any every thing in between as well. And maybe one thing to say about agreeableness. Sometimes I get the impression that it might be thought that being agreeable is like it means you're a good person or that's the right way to be. And when you are not agreeable, it is like you are not a good person or you are so selfish exactly like that.

And I think again, there needs to be nuance there because these personality traits not about good, about each a certain tendencies.

Exactly. And then you also like I also have this story I was in this seminar, I think, on personality and how personality impacts, you know, what careers we choose and all of that. And, you know, we started talking about agreeableness and I remember like we kind of went into the discussion because someone raised this point of hate, but is it agreeableness or is it people pleasing?

Yeah, that is.

A good, you know, and because you can be agreeable, but still stand your ground, right? Like you can be agreeable in the sense of you would like to collaborate with people and you enjoy that and you enjoy teamwork and all of that. But when somebody steps over, you know your territory, you're going to defend that. You're going to defend your boundaries, right?

Instead of, you know, thinking like in the sense of people pleasing, where even when people overstep your boundaries, you still don't do anything. And that is not agreeable.

Is not agreeable. That is people pleasing, that is not standing up for yourself.

Exactly.

And having your own back.

But see, like here you can really see the difference between how people conceptualize personality in the sense of, oh, you know, like, I can't help it. Yeah, just I'm a people pleaser or, you know, I'm somebody who's a type-A personality, so I will always seek conflict just because I'm a Type A, But maybe you're somebody who maybe scores lower on agreeableness, and that's okay.

We need all of these people.

You know, we.

Need all kind of points on the spectrum.

Exactly. Exactly.

Then the fourth big personality trait is openness to experience. And that is your tendency to be open to new esthetic, cultural or intellectual experiences.

I had a misconception about this.

Oh, what was it?

Yeah, you know, I actually it's like whenever I talk to people about my openness to experience and I score highly on openness to experience, actually.

People looked at me like you are open to experience.

Because, for instance, I don't like adrenaline stuff.

I mean.

I don't like going rafting or whatever. Like, I don't like this, you know, like these experiences where you have these like, you know, life or death situations. I mean, not life or death, but you know what I mean? Like bungee jumping. I'm not going to go any place like the adrenaline. Exactly. Like I don't enjoy these kind of things.

I do enjoy, you know, going to museums, seeking new experiences, going to concerts that these are new experiences, new places.

But just exactly, exactly.

But just because people think openness to experience means only doing these highly adrenaline activities, this is such a misconception.

You know what? This actually really reminds me also of this whole conversation on hobbies, like what is a hobby, what is not a hobby and what is an interesting hobby. And if you have a boring hobby, is it even a hobby? You know, in this whole, I don't know, judgment of how people choose to spend their time and whether that qualifies as a hobby or not.

Exactly. I see a lot of Yeah.

Parallels there.

So if you are somebody jumping.

You have an interesting hobby if you're reading. Is that even a hobby? Yeah. It's like.

If you don't read.

What are you doing interest?

But it just goes to show that, you know, people really have a very specific idea of what a specific trait is, and they don't really think about ways in which that trait can manifest because it's not only about going and jumping off a plane or whatever.

Or going in.

With a parachute, but like it's also openness to experience can be about so many other things, and that's super important. So don't beat yourself up. If you're not somebody who enjoys adrenaline, you are.

Open to experience, to put that out there because it's a sore point. It is. It is true.

And the fifth trait, the fifth personality trait that we wanted to talk about before we move into the and this is conscientiousness and you've probably heard about conscientiousness as like a super important trait to have if you want to be successful and all of that, if you want to be, you know, like this is something that employers also look a lot of for when they hire employees, you know, somebody who is organized, responsible and hardworking, you know, and you can be highly conscientious or not as conscientious as other people.

And that is okay in the sense of, you know, you can have different tendencies and it's fine to understand where you stand on that spectrum. So you can see where you would like to move forward. If we're going to talk about all of those in the remaining of the episode. But basically, by defining all of these traits, maybe that also gave you an opportunity to reflect on where you stand.

So there's also a lot of personality tests out there. You can take the name API. I think that well.

That's one of the most.

Reliable, reliable ones. So leg, don't please don't take the Myers-Briggs, please. So you can take these tests and see. Yeah, maybe we can link somewhere in the show notes as well. Like yeah.

Maybe we can link actually a tiny API. Because what you will also see is just how much complexity there is within you. This is what I realized when I first took this test. It's like it's a long test, but it's really worth it. I just realized, you know, I'm a little bit of an extrovert, I'm a little bit of an introvert as well.

And it's just it's just more complex than either extrovert or introvert. And that goes for all the big five personality traits, of course. So I highly recommend. So we will talk about four different myths that are very common and that might keep you in this limiting belief system and that might keep you from reaching your full potential. Yeah, so let's dive right into them.

Myth one is that your personality tells you who you are. And what we mean with this is that oftentimes we allow our personalities to define what we can or cannot do, but we're much more than that. Yeah, right. As you just discussed, it's you know, you might think that because someone is extroverted, it, you know, they are they are always comfortable around people.

They are never shy. They are maybe great, you know, in social situations. They are communicator, great communicators, all of that. So we have all of these kind of like associations with what it means to be a certain type of person and then we believe that we oftentimes believe that, well, that defines who this person is. Yeah, exactly. And this is where it becomes problematic because personality are tendencies.

Exactly. But it's not you're not just that. Right. And you're not oftentimes not just what is visible as well.

Yeah. I think it's also about the fact that, you know, we tend to think about personality as a very set way or a very defining way of how we portray ourselves into the world. But we don't really realize that our personality is just a tendency, right, to act in a certain way. And sure, it may be an enduring tendency, but it's still just a tendency.

And we have leeway in deciding how we want to show up. And I think the most important thing is when you understand where you stand on these personality traits. So like when you take a personality test and you kind of see, okay, this is kind of where I'm at, and you take this time to reflect a little bit on it, then you can really see, Hey, you know, like these are things that I would like to improve and you have leeway in that.

And I think that's super, super important. And also, you know, like there is this whole idea that, you know, for instance, that people who are extroverted means that they will always, as you said, like they will feel comfortable around new people. And that's not always the case. And I.

Think now.

I mean, we know these people who, like, are super extroverted, but then a new situation is they're also feeling awkward because, I mean, tell me a person who doesn't feel awkward in new situations, I think they can mask it very well, but I'm not sure.

I think some people feel more awkward than others.

Sure. 100%.

That.

Yes, 100%. But I wouldn't say that everybody, like some people who are extroverted, for instance, are 100% comfortable in these situations because it's a new situation and by default, a new situation will be uncomfortable. So even if you're extroverted or introverted, you know, and you see like these people who are super extroverted and a kind of, you know, like how do they do it?

You know, like, how are they so natural in these settings? And like how you know, the way that they approach other people and all of that and you think, oh, you know, I wish I could do that, but it really just shows you that they manifest their traits differently, right? So it's a learning for you as well to reflect on how you manifest your traits and that in specific situations and understand where you have leeway to move along the spectrum as well.
And this actually ties in very well with the second myth, which is that your personality doesn't change. I mean, let's think about it. How often how we told ourselves, Well, I can't do that because that's just who I am. Exactly. And I can't change who I am. So I can't do this specific thing or about other people as well.

Like especially in relationships. I think that is something that, you know, whenever there's a conflict and, you know, like there is, you know, for instance, you don't have, let's say, the right conflict management strategies in place or the communication strategies in place, then you think, Oh, but that's just who I am. I can't help it. Yeah, and especially if you want somebody else to change, you know, like if you talk, for instance, with your partner or and you ask, hey, you know, like, can we do it in this way?

Because that would really help me. And then the answer, Oh, I can do it. It's just who I am.

Yeah.

That's an excuse. I'm sorry.

Most of the times it is. I do believe that there are certain things sometimes that indeed you just can't change completely and maybe you don't want to change them as well.

Yeah. Yeah.

But I feel like we use it as an excuse way too often. It's those self-imposed limiting beliefs. Or maybe also those limiting beliefs were imposed to us by our environment, maybe by our parents, by teachers, by friends. But it.

Really can.

Be traced back to very long ago, I think.

Exactly. But the important thing is to really realize, okay, we're telling this to ourselves and when you realize you're telling jokes, others just how I am, I can't change that. Stop there and think for a moment. Is that indeed the case? Is there truly nothing to be done? Or is this just the boundary that I'm setting myself and this limitation that I had on myself?

Because sometimes it's easier to say, Oh, that's just the way it is. Because of course any change.

Requires work.

Improvement requires effort and work time. And and this can be scary. It can be scary.

And it is scary. Like in general, change is scary. But that doesn't mean that we just you know, it's like these turtles who basically hide whenever just like a threat, they're like, no, I'm going to go in my house and just like, yeah, there, you know, But yeah, we can always change and we can always move on the spectrum.

And there's actually a lot of evidence from research that we wanted to share with you. So first, you know, we've got these evidence from developmental psychology, which basically shows how people's personality change over the life span. And what we know from research is that personality changes as we grow older in the sense that we become more agreeable. So we want more cooperation than conflict.

And this kind of, you know, goes hand in hand with the fact that, you know, as we grow older, we tend to put more importance on other things, like, for instance, our family or, you know, like we we tend to prioritize that over, for instance, climbing up the career ladder and all of that. So we tend to become more collaborative rather than competitive over time as our priorities also shift.

But we also become more conscientious because I think we realize.

The order of the world and we kind of want to fit in as well.

And we also want to become more organized and reach our goals and yeah, be more in tune with our life plans and make them happen. So that's definitely something that changes over the lifespan, but we also become more emotionally stable.

Yeah, that's a big one, right? I mean, if I think about how I was as a teenager versus now I.

Was a nightmare.

But I would also say, you know, you like over time it might get better, it might get worse again and might get better again. It's not just either it only improves or it only like, you know, worsens its waves. And for instance.

If you have for example, if you're going through a period of high stress, that might make you score a bit higher on neuroticism, for instance, because you are just going under constant stress. Yeah. And you have to move forward and the stress is not stopping. So of course we're going to become more and more distressed. However, that doesn't mean that that's just how you're going to be for your entire life.

This can ebb and flow as well. So perhaps with age, what we can also see is that we tend to become more resilient to these stressors, which or, you know, we kind of tend to also find different meaning in things as well, where, you know, some stressors don't affect us as much because, yeah, we have the life experience to you.

Yeah. Basically guide us into how to, to deal with them so we become more emotionally stable. But interestingly, that's interesting to me. I have to say, the fact that we become less open to experience as we grow older, and I think this is also related to this misconception that of like openness to experience equals adrenaline seeking, which are two different things because of course when you are older, maybe you don't want to go and jump off an airplane, you might break a hip or something.

But you know what I mean?

But I feel like older people still look for a new experience. Maybe there's not a lot of new stuff to experience.

Because.

They have experienced a lot.

Of things that they say Maybe it comes with life experience as well, where you maybe get to a point where you feel like, I have seen so many things I've done so many things. My priority right now is to just live a calm and peaceful and chill life. Exactly. I can totally see this happening.

Oh, I love seeing these older people who are like super curious about social media and.

Gadgets.

Like also, you know, like on TikTok, there's a lot of these accounts with like older people, like showing off their outfits. I think there is this Korean couple or Japanese couple, I don't know, but they basically show their outfits.

On TikTok like every day and it's so cute. And then I think like.

These people, they have, you know, lived an entire life. They have so many experiences and yet, you know, they they are still open to trying out new things that are on the market now, like.

Say, maybe this cool, very high openness.

Exactly. So you don't really see how that is not necessarily a pattern that applies to everybody. There's just a general tendency of the population. But you can also understand others better. Like if you think about your parents or grandparents, you know? But we also have evidence from neuroscience that actually we have a lot of brain plasticity when it comes to new environments.

So just going to like is going to show that we tend to change and we are not stuck in the same personality traits our entire lives.

Myth number three is that your personality type determines what you can or cannot do and who you can or cannot be. And I have such strong opinions about this one. Yeah, I have to say this is one of the things that really annoys me so many times, and especially so I feel like one of the most common examples is being a manager of being a good leader.

Oh yeah.

And how this is tied to a certain set of personalities is oftentimes you hear, you know, it's if you're extroverted, you will be a better manager or a better leader and stuff like that. And we have studies that show that, yes, well, currently or in the past, a lot of leaders or managers tended to be extroverted. It didn't make them better leaders or managers.

It doesn't make any difference.

And that says exactly your personality. Again, it's your tendencies. It what it is, what comes natural to you. But it doesn't define who you can or cannot be or what you can or cannot do. Exactly. We are able to learn so much and I'm so sick of just people putting like limits man and label on the label.

Say like what you're saying about this.

Yeah. In order to do that and it's like, but isn't it. Yeah. We actually know that introverts oftentimes tend to be better managers.

Exactly. Exactly. Because they, you know, listen better to other people as well. Yes. Well, you know, that's interesting to me. I like to talk about learning. Right. We take we tend to take skills for personality traits. So many times, like, for instance, if you like, taking this example. Right. We think about what is a good leader and then we think about, oh, you know, they have to have intelligence, they have to have strength, they have to have charisma or drive.

These are skills. These are not personality traits. Yeah, they can be learned, they can be cultivated. And it has nothing to do with your personality. And that is a fallacy actually, that a lot of people have. And what saddens me is that these kind of perceptions that guide sometimes even hiring decisions.

That honestly, in my experience, this stuff plays a very, very big role in promotions and in decisions, as you said, exactly who is going to be the next whatever CEO and stuff like that. And I do see how these skills are important. Some of them are over, you know, over emphasize, yeah, they're overrated and others are underrated. But as I said, these are skills and anyone can learn them.

And maybe depending on your personality, it may require a little bit more or less effort to learn them.

But that's it's like don't can be a leader. Even if you're an introvert, you can be a leader if maybe you want to be more conscientious snares or use or lower on the conscientiousness spectrum that doesn't have anything to do with how you show up because that is something that is within your control. And finally, we've got Ms. number four, which is quite interesting.

I have a personal story with that one as well.

It's the fact that we have the same personality traits in every context. So the fact that we kind of show up in the same way across different contexts and that couldn't be further from the truth. Like think about even yourself when you are at home versus when you are at work. I can tell from my experience I'm a different person at work.

And so.

Totally, yeah, totally.

And I've gotten these comments where people are like, Oh, but like, you're so extroverted. I'm like.

No, can I please go home, change in my sweatpants and just read my book and just have my and thank you.

But people perceive me as very extroverted in for example, professional settings, you know, which is quite interesting because it just goes to show how personality traits manifest differently in different environments.

But it also shows just, yeah, how we adapt, right, and which side of us we show because all of this is part of us. Some it is maybe the more authentic us. The other one is maybe a professional version of us, but it is a version of us, so we are able to switch between them without even consciously thinking about it.

Is crazy like that. Just that is something that I find crazy about human nature that we can be so complex and so adaptive and, you know.

So.

Fluid in that sense where we ebb and flow and our tendencies and our, you know, behaviors, they ebb and flow according to which context we are in. So just in general, like the fact that just this whole episode, you know, bottom line is that personality is just something that defines your tendencies, but it doesn't necessarily tell you who you are or how you're going to act or whether you're going to be the same person across different contexts.

So just to conclude this whole episode, our personalities are just predispositions and we can decide how we act, what attitude we have, what skills we want to develop, and how we want to show up for ourselves. You know? And the great thing is that that is all in our control.

So we hope that this episode just really helps you to, yeah, reflect on where you stand in terms of your big five personality traits. Again, thinking about them as a spectrum and we hope that, well, it inspired you to, you know, think about what your strengths are and how you can capitalize on them and how you can use your habits and routines and willpower to develop the skills that maybe don't come as naturally to you, but that will help you to basically create the life that you want to live and to become the person that you want to be.

And if you've been enjoying this episode, support our Friday Coffee chats. By buying us a coffee, you can find the link to support the show in the episode description. And if you love this episode, send it also to a friend so they can also get to know their personality a bit better and find ways to overcome their limiting beliefs and live a more authentic and fulfilling life to them.

See you in the next episode.

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