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:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Has anybody here ever substantially changed their personality? I don't mean a simple increase in confidence or developing a taste for beer. I mean a fundamental shift in polarity -- going from an introvert to an extrovert, a risk-averse nerd to an overconfident jock, etc.. Do you think there's any limit on the changes people can make in themselves, barring traumatic events or assistance from drugs?
The most reliable way to change your personality is to change the contexts in which it is expressed. If you're always a nebbish follower, it is likely because there are always other people leading you around, and you've adjusted yourself to that. Want to be more assertive? Put yourself in charge of people, you'll learn. They'll look at you as a leader, you'll learn to lead. Over time, leading will become the habit, and that will take over in other contexts outside of the context where you were forced to adapt.
Obviously there are limits to this. I'll never be the overconfident jock that, say, Sauce Gardner is because there is no possible context for me to be that much more talented than that many others. But if you want to feel more like a confident jock, the thing to do is to work out and find a rec league of a sport weird enough that you can compete; that will give you the context you need. That's why white people in America invent a new sport every five years or so, so that people can experience that context when they aren't good enough for the headline team sports.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link