3597: 3 Ways People Become Stuck, Undeveloped, and Unsuccessful by Benjamin Hardy on Personal Development

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[00:00:55] [SPEAKER_00] This is Optimal Living Daily. Three Ways People Become Stuck, Undeveloped, and Unsuccessful. By Benjamin Hardy of BenjaminHardy.com. And I'm Justin Malek. We're gonna jump right into today's post as we optimize your life. Three Ways People Become Stuck, Undeveloped, and Unsuccessful. By Benjamin Hardy of BenjaminHardy.com.

[00:01:23] [SPEAKER_00] Are you born the way you are and never change? Or are you always changing? In Western culture, the predominant belief is that for the most part, your identity is a fixed characteristic. It's DNA-based and possibly solidified through your experience in the womb and before the age of six or seven. Without question, your DNA, birthing experience, and childhood experiences are super important. But what about the rest of your life? And what about this fixed mindset?

[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_00] In the book, The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk, MD, explains that traumatic experiences can freeze a person's personality. When a person experiences traumatic stress, they often have a difficult time disassociating themselves with that stress. The memory gets sealed into their long-term memory. Unlike normal memories, which are social and flexible, traumatic memories become isolated from context, isolated from other people, and are rigid.

[00:02:21] [SPEAKER_00] Your memory can get stuck. And then you get stuck. As a person, traumatic experiences keep you in the past. You stop looking forward. You stop integrating new memories in. You live in the past. You have a very difficult time fully embracing the present moment and allowing present experiences to continue shaping your personality. Life is hard. It's projected that approximately 28% of women are fully abused in their lives.

[00:02:48] [SPEAKER_00] The world is constantly changing and highly demanding. When I was 11, my parents got divorced. That shook me up pretty good. Then at 16, I was in a car accident where my mom was almost killed. I was the driver. That was rough. Chances are, you've experienced some degree of trauma. Chances are, that trauma could be keeping you frozen as a person. Challenge to personality development number one. Traumatic experiences.

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_00] If you've experienced trauma, there are a few powerful ways to be healed. One form of therapy is called eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, or EMDR therapy. It's based on the notion that memories are formed during REM sleep, which stands for rapid eye movement. When you're in REM, your eyes are moving back and forth really fast. This is why your dreams can seem random. But it's how your memories are integrated into your long-term memory and how your identity develops.

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_00] Yoga has also been found to be a powerful way to work through trauma, as has writing in your journal, getting massages, and other traditional forms of therapy. Physical touch is very powerful when a person is embraced. Connection to self and others is very healing. And loving touch can be a powerful vehicle. The main idea is that you need to reframe your memory. You need to begin experiencing present moments again. You need to stop living in the past. This isn't easy.

[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_00] Eventually, you can get to the point where you see the past experience as the past. It's not you anymore. It's an experience you had. But that's not you anymore. You're a new person now. The present is actually pretty great. Challenge to personality development number two, not creating peak moments. In the book, The Power of Moments, Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact, Chip and Dan Heath explain that certain experiences in life

[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_00] have the power to totally alter your worldview and direction in life. Some scientists would call these experiences transformational learning experiences. Others call them disorienting dilemmas. Others have simply called them peak experiences. The main idea is that while growing up, a person often has powerful and emotional experiences that inform their worldview and personality development. According to the Heath Brothers and all the research they cite in their book, most of these paradigm-shifting experiences

[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_00] happen during a person's teens, 20s, and begin tapering off during a person's 30s. They become almost non-existent for people over 40. And thus, people become frozen at a certain stage of their personality and assume that's how it's supposed to be. However, the Heath Brothers explain that this doesn't need to be the case. You can actually manufacture these experiences regularly and throughout your entire life. The reason most people stop having peak experiences, which according to Dr. Abraham Maslow,

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_00] is required to become fully actualized as a person, is because they settle into societal norms. They stop growing. They stop putting themselves into wildly new and demanding situations. They stop exercising faith after having life experiences and grow to become skeptical or cynical. I was on an airplane with a woman in her late 60s yesterday. She's been an acting coach for 20 years. Before that, she spent 20 years in human development jobs. Before that, she was an actress.

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_00] I was explaining these ideas to her, and she loved them. She said that she's very close to retirement and is feeling really, really ready to begin learning and growing again. She doesn't want to plateau. She's ready for the next chapter where she is a new person. Of course, she uses all of her past experiences to inform whatever she does, just like she uses all of her experience in human development to inform how she coaches actors and actresses. But she also develops radically new sides of her personality

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_00] that never existed before. If you're not having life-altering in peak moments, you're frozen in time. Don't settle. Never stop evolving. Challenge to personality development number three. You've bought into the myth of a fixed personality. Personality is not a fixed characteristic. In Western culture, we become obsessed with personality and fixed traits in general. We love our personality tests. We love putting ourselves in boxes. We love diagnosing ourselves.

[00:07:01] [SPEAKER_00] Because in Western culture, there is an obsession with individualism and an utter ignorance of the context that shapes the individual. It turns out, this is actually a very costly mental mistake. According to Stanford psychologist Lee Ross, quote, People's inflated belief in the importance of personality traits and dispositions, together with their failure to recognize the importance of situational factors in affecting behavior, has been termed the fundamental attribution error, end quote.

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_00] Who you are in one situation is different from who you are in a different situation. Your quote-unquote authentic self is not some fixed trait, but who you feel you should be at a certain time and place. Additionally, your authentic self shouldn't limit growth, but be something that draws you to continual growth. Personality isn't a fixed thing. Personality is developed, and it never has to stop developing. Conclusion.

[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_00] The belief that who you are at birth is who you are is a fixed mindset. Don't buy into it. You can always change. You change by believing you can change, continually creating peak experiences, and overcoming traumas you have through life. Don't freeze your personality. You just listened to the post titled,

[00:08:24] [SPEAKER_00] Three Ways People Become Stuck, Undeveloped, and Unsuccessful, by Benjamin Hardy of benjaminhardy.com. And I'll be right back with my commentary. This show is sponsored by Liquid IV. Hydration isn't just chugging water, it's about absorbing it effectively. That's where Liquid IV shines. Their formula combines allulose and amino acids for efficient absorption, keeping electrolytes in your system for up to four hours. It's clinically studied, hydrating better than water alone.

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[00:10:48] [SPEAKER_00] Thank you to Benjamin. I can definitely relate to this idea of a frozen personality. There was a time in my life, probably right after college, where I felt like I was just going through the motions. I had this image of who I was supposed to be, this serious business guy in a cubicle somewhere or office. And I was trying to force myself into that mold, even though deep down didn't feel right. Looking back, I can see how I was clinging to an idea of myself that wasn't really who I wanted to be.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_00] And I can see how trauma could create these frozen personalities. For me, I'm not necessarily talking about major trauma, but even those smaller experiences shape us. Like maybe getting laughed at or being told we're not good at something. I remember not doing well with public speaking and for years I avoided it. Still do in certain cases. But it's funny considering I'm literally talking to you right now on this podcast and that's somehow become my job. The good news is that we're not stuck

[00:11:48] [SPEAKER_00] with who we think we are. I've seen this in my own life as I've grown and changed over the years. Starting this podcast was definitely outside my comfort zone initially, but it's become such an important part of who I am now. I think that's the point. We can choose to redefine ourselves pretty much at any time. So hopefully you found value in this one. I know I did. And with that, thank you for being here and listening every day. Have a great rest of your day and I'll see you tomorrow where your optimal life awaits. Let's see you tomorrow.