You're Not Your Personality (And Science Now Confirms It)

4 min. read | Mindset | Habits | Personality

Science now confirms your personality can change - intentionally. But the harder part, of course, is execution - and changing takes more than just willpower. Here’s where hypnosis helps you shift those traits you want to change with far less friction and struggle.

Literally one week after I posted on Instagram about how you’re not your personality, CBS Sunday Morning aired a fascinating story saying the same thing. The universe has a wicked sense of timing!

This article is for anyone who’s started to feel like some aspect of their personality - some way of thinking, feeling, or behaving - has become so habitual that it feels immovable. And yet, at some level, you know you can shift it. You want to shift it. You’re just not sure how to do it without fighting yourself every step of the way.

Let’s get into it.

Is it possible to scientifically change your personality?

“That’s what our data tell us.”
- Dr. Shannon Sauer-Zavala, Clinical Psychologist at University of Kentucky

The CBS segment from Susan Spencer featured personality science researcher Dr. Shannon Sauer-Zavala, who studies how people intentionally change their personalities over time - traits like introversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness.

Dr. Sauer-Zavala continues, “When we make intentional changes to our thinking, our feeling, and our behaviors - and we maintain those changes over time - then we’re essentially shifting our personality.”

Separately, a comprehensive 2024 analysis pooled dozens of experiments on personality development and found a clear takeaway: when people actively work on changing a trait (like becoming more agreeable or less anxious), those interventions are usually successful at shifting the trait over time.

Psychologists are increasingly confident that our traits aren’t set in stone - with purposeful effort and the right strategies, our personalities can evolve in meaningful ways.

Translation: Your personality is fluid, not fixed. It’s not permanent. It’s not “just how you are” (unless you really want to keep believing that).

It’s shaped by the habits of thought, feeling, and behavior you run - and these subconscious patterns can be changed.

But - here’s the kicker: “The principles are simple. The execution is not easy,” Dr. Sauer-Zavala adds.

And that’s where hypnosis comes in…

Why Hypnosis Completes the Loop

Personality change isn’t just about setting goals, journaling better, or paying a coach to ask you questions and keep you “accountable.”

It’s about shifting the subconscious patterns that make realizing those goals feel either frictionless, or impossible.

Hypnosis and hypnotherapy bypass your internal resistance and the “critical factor” that keeps your limiting beliefs stuck in place. Hypnosis reaches the part of you that’s been running the same identity loops on autopilot for years.

It’s not magic or woo-woo. It’s accessing the subconscious mind directly, without the conscious, thinking mind throwing all manner of blocks and resistance into the mix. (You likely already know exactly how that works.)

When we work with the subconscious directly, we don’t have to push change - we align with it, at all levels of consciousness.

(And no - talking about it and thinking about it in everyday, waking consciousness is not accessing or working with the subconscious mind, despite what you may hear from the legions of coaches and therapists out there. This is what makes hypnosis very different - and crazy effective at changing subconscious patterns.)

Tapping the subconscious makes changing personality traits feel more effortless. Emerging research highlights that hypnosis and other subconscious-focused techniques can turbocharge personal change.

In the case of anxiety (where you might say, “I’m just an anxious personality,” or “I’m prone to anxiety,”) one meta-analysis reported that people who incorporated hypnosis into their self-improvement process ended up better off than 84% of those in control groups.

Hypnotherapy puts your mind in a highly open, suggestible state where positive changes (say, adopting healthier habits or a calmer outlook) can take root more seamlessly. And the result?

Transformations that might normally take months of repetitive brain and willpower training can unfold far more easily - as if your brain’s “autopilot” is helping rewrite your personality in the direction you choose.

Aligning your conscious, thinking mind with your subconscious mind (which is really running the show) is what makes the shift feel more natural and effortless. It’s what makes the changes actually last - because it’s really just more of you coming online and getting in line with what you truly want. Because along the way, you’re also getting your real, deeper needs met at a deeper level. (That’s where hypnotherapy really shines.)

Final Words from the Story

CBS’s Susan Spencer closed the Sunday Morning segment with a light, but pointed question:

“For all the people sitting out there watching this with their completely unsatisfactory personalities… what advice do you have?”

Dr. Sauer-Zavala responded:

“Don’t get stuck in a personality type box. Think about the life you want to have - and then know that you can intentionally develop the traits that will facilitate that journey for you.”

Exactly!

And hypnosis helps you bridge the gap between the life you want, and the version of you who actually lives it.

You already feel the shift is possible - and you know you have the power to change.

Now, just make it way more frictionless with the power of hypnosis! Book some time for us to talk about your goals and how hypnosis can help you.

Let’s start the conversation your subconscious mind has been waiting for.

And catch the full cover story, “A New You? on CBS Sunday Morning.