The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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Let's break this down into a couple of components: Can circumstances significantly alter one's personality? And can one change one's circumstances through conscious effort? Put that way the answer is obviously yes to both. Circumstances are changing our personality all the time, and we can change our circumstances through conscious effort.
The way you have phrased it makes it seem as though one thinks really really hard about it and changes one's personality through sheer force of will. I don't have any experience with that, though others might.
On the other hand, I can attest to significant parts of my personality changing over time in response to circumstances, and to my ability to change my circumstances by conscious decision making. The guy attending the party typically acts differently than the guy throwing it, but all you need to do to become the guy throwing the party is to throw a party. Throw enough parties and you become that guy on a deeper level, a more permanent basis. Think of how people's professions and avocations become imprinted on their personality. The Marine Drill Sergeant, the kindergarten teacher, the mother, the surfer, the factory floor foreman, they weren't born with these personalities they were molded into them by assuming the role every day.
Think of it as the difference between buying a bag of chips and saying you won't eat them, versus choosing not to buy a bag of chips to begin with. One is a much easier use of will than the other.
So what circumstances can you create in your life to force sociality? To change how you interact with people? I have a couple random suggestions:
-- Are you American? If so, this is probably the middle of primary season in an off-off-year election in your state. This is a boring year around me: no governor, no legislative elections, no presidential election, just some local, school board, and county level stuff. This means that every election comes down to ground game, voter contact, and that no one gives a shit so they are desperate for interested volunteers and will take anyone. These groups are starved for volunteers, find someone you vaguely agree with* who is running for local office and get in touch with them and offer to work with them. Offer to knock on doors and speak to constituents about the candidate. For the most part even if you do a hilariously shitty job, the skin-in-the-game commitment of knocking on doors will have 75% of the value anyway for the candidate. And within a few days you will have your vibe down, your game down; you'll knock on the door and know exactly what to say when they open it.
-- Seek out a leadership/mentoring role. This can be in a work setting or in an avocational setting. I'm guessing here, but it sounds like you work in a technical white collar field in a junior role, you are talented but have no direct reports, no one is underneath you in the flow chart. This has accustomed you to a junior role, taking orders rather than giving them. You need to become accustomed to command. Volunteer to mentor new employees. Teach a class in something you know at a local community college or high school. Volunteer with the Boy Scouts or another youth org. Purely formal power, power with no meaning at all, will cause people (especially younger or dumber people) to automatically give you command, give you credibility and status, just find a way to get that title and you will start to learn how to use that power. When we think of the proverbial lost masculinity of our ancestors, a lot of it was wrapped up in the Great Chain of Being, even the serfs at the bottom of the pyramid ruled over their children and their animals. Right now you aren't used to giving orders, so it is unnatural, put yourself in circumstances where it is natural and you'll see a lot of social skills blossom.
-- Go to church. Piety is the single easiest valuable trait to fake your way through, where every other hobby has some buy in, churchgoers more or less have to be nice to you. Doesn't matter what church, just do it. Worst case ontario, Pascal's gamble right?
*Yeah yeah, all you extra special bois can chime in that there is no candidate who matches your views. I used to sympathize with this view, until I realized how much of it serves to substitute fantasy for action. If you wait until a movement appears that enacts your exact worldview, you'll never do anything, but the bright side is you'll never have to do anything.
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