Why You Need to Stop Thinking Your Personality has a Type with Dr. Benjamin Hardy
Why are personality tests harmful and unscientific? Dr. Benjamin Hardy, in Personality Isn’t Permanent, explains the potential for these tests to limit who you can become. But he doesn’t leave you hanging. He talks about how identity can be an intentional creation and what we can do to connect to our future selves. You won’t want to miss this.
Who is Dr. Benjamin Hardy?
Dr. Benjamin Hardy is an organizational psychologist and bestselling author of Willpower Doesn’t Work*. His blogs have been read by over 100 million people and are featured on Forbes, Fortune, CNBC, Cheddar, Big Think, and many others.
He’s a regular contributor to Inc. and Psychology Today and from 2015-2018, he was the #1 writer, in the world, on Medium.com. He and his wife Lauren adopted three children through the foster system in February 2018 and, one month later, Lauren became pregnant with twins, who were born in December of 2018.
Today, his newest book Personality Isn’t Permanent* comes out and is the reason for today’s episode. He goes where many public figures are afraid to go. Making a bold claim that personality tests are no more scientific than a monthly horoscope. You bet he received many angry emails. But his reason for making such a statement makes sense.
My hope is you’ll have an open mind and hear how much deeper your spirit is than a limiting test. Tune in to the episode to hear the full story.
Why Personality Tests are Harmful and Unscientific
Myers Brigg. Enneagram. That color one. Who knows. People touting their "numbers" as a badge of honor. Some use it to judge themselves and others. Then there's self-help books, seminars, journals, etc.
While these tools are well-meaning where's the line between trusting external answers versus trusting your soul? Too often people use personality tests and self-help tools as an excuse to limit themselves. Or to continue hiding behind an identity they’ve unconsciously created. The excitement from these tools can become an alluring trap disguised in well-meaning buzzwords which keep you endlessly searching outside of yourself for answers.
Without careful intention you can find yourself stuck satiating the ego and fearing the discomfort that comes with stretching the boundary of your comfort zone. The ego LOVES labels. LOVES IT. Nothing makes the ego feel happier then believing you fit in a box labeled 9 with balanced wings. Or that you're the color white and your significant other is red.
Acting Outside of Your Identity
The ego adores safety and predictability. It believes that because you've labeled yourself as, let’s say, an introvert there's no reason for you to try and say hello to people at a gathering. AKA getting outside your comfort zone. These typecasts can become excuses for staying stagnant.
Dr. Hardy, says, "If you've called yourself an introvert, you're probably gonna be very inflexible to situations that would require being in a social situation because you would be acting against your identity. Acting against your identity is not necessarily a positive experience. You become very unwilling to do anything that you don't see fits who you've defined yourself to be.” Acting outside of your identity is uncomfortable. Painful. The ego doesn’t like it.
He goes on to say,
“So if you've called yourself an introvert, which no one actually is, even Carl Jung said, if there's a pure introvert or a pure extrovert, that person would be in a lunatic asylum. You may identify as one, it would then probably lead you to goals to confirm that, so you probably wouldn't try things outside of that. You wouldn't put yourself in situations that would require uncertainty. And that would allow you to kind of flex that muscle where you could become better with people. Instead, you'd pursue goals and you tell a story to justify who you are, and it wouldn't require you to change."
An even more interesting point he makes is that identity is something we create. Most of the time unconsciously but he challenges you to start doing it intentionally. After all, he didn’t start out being the productive, high achiever he is today.
Never Be a Former Anything
Dr. Hardy’s life looked very different a decade ago. He was unmotivated, had family members who struggled with addiction, and didn’t have much going for him. After serving a mission for his church that’s when he realized his life didn’t have to stay that way. In early 2015, he both entered his Ph.D. program and started fostering three children with zero experience as a parent. That’s also when he began writing online. Talk about a lot of massive change in a year.
What kept him going? Aside from having a solid morning routine, Dr. Hardy said he built his identity around the person he wanted to become. He learned our desires aren’t natural but something we need to be intentional about. He says, “I remember the first year being a foster parent of three kids. No, I didn't like going home. It was not easy and it took a lot of convincing of myself. I had to literally build the identity that these were my kids that this was who I am because it was a shift. I had to invest in them. I will say I had a change of heart. And it became what I genuinely wanted. And you can change your desires.”
In the episode, he dives deeper into why we must be intentional and choose who we want to become. Then to make decisions based on that future person. Who we were in the past is someone who would make different decisions than who you are today. Or even who you’ll be in the future. It’s important to treat the past, present, and future self as completely different people.
When you make decisions today do so with your future self in mind. Don’t allow your past to influence the present or future. He says, “I firmly believe you should never be the former anything. You know what I mean? Whether you are a musician and an astronaut, a drug addict, it's like that that's not you anymore. That's your former self. That's not who you are today. But the funny part about identity is that we just want we don't want to let that side of ourselves go. Even though we're not the same person. Our future self is in totally different direction. We just we just cling to our former identity.”
Identity is a Choice
Rather than cling to a former identity it’s important to create with consciousness. Dr. Hardy says, “I mean, the main thing is identity is your choice. Often identity is not thought out very much. We just sometimes particularly say ‘this is who I am’. You can catch yourself saying really weird limiting things about yourself. And I think being conscious of your identity and the person you describe yourself to be that is not fixed. Just because you've described yourself a certain way in the past, or just because you've been a certain way in the past doesn't mean that's who you have to be in the future. The future is open territory.”
How do you allow the future to be open territory? Of course, here at The Good Space I’m about mindful habits. Setting up a personal system that allows you to work towards your future like clockwork. A morning routine is a magical first step toward changing your future. What Dr. Hardy does is, “I actively put myself in various environments that will impact my energy, my mindset so that I can make decisions from the right place. I think often people don't make big decisions in their lives because they don't put themselves in the right frame of mind. Like there's a concept called set and setting you need the right mindset. You also need the right setting.”
What are you doing to create the right setting? How are you supporting yourself every day to meet your future self? This episode is chock full of spiritual and practical wisdom so make sure to listen to the full episode. His book Personality Isn’t Permanent* dives even deeper and inspired me to make game changing tweaks to my habits. If you’re serious about getting your life in shape you don’t want to miss this book!
More From This Episode
What is a future-self filter? How do you know if a goal is ego driven or truly aligned with who you are? Hit play to find out. Find this conversation with Dr. Benjamin Hardy wherever you get your podcasts or with the quick links above.
INTENTION
I am open and flexible. I choose the person I’m becoming and act with deliberate intention.
Resources
Buy Personality Isn’t Permanent*
Dr. Benjamin Hardy’s Official Site.
Click here for your morning routine guide!
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