Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change (Olga Khazan) - Amazon USA Store: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D5VZFXBT?tag=9natree-20 - Amazon Worldwide Store: https://global.buys.trade/Me%2C-But-Better%3A-The-Science-and-Promise-of-Personality-Change-Olga-Khazan.html - eBay: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=Me+But+Better+The+Science+and+Promise+of+Personality+Change+Olga+Khazan+&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&siteid=0&campid=5339060787&customid=9natree&toolid=10001&mkevt=1 - Read more: https://mybook.top/read/B0D5VZFXBT/ #personalitychange #behavioralscience #BigFivetraits #habitformation #selfimprovementpsychology #MeButBetter These are takeaways from this book. Firstly, What Personality Is and How Scientists Measure It, A core foundation of the book is clarifying what people mean when they say personality. In everyday life, personality is a vibe or identity, but in research it is often treated as a set of relatively consistent patterns in thinking, feeling, and behaving. The book orients readers to trait models that dominate modern psychology, especially frameworks that cluster traits into broad dimensions such as extraversion, conscientiousness, openness, agreeableness, and emotional stability. Understanding these dimensions matters because it replaces vague goals like be better with targets you can observe and track. If you want to be more conscientious, for example, the practical question becomes which behaviors demonstrate it: planning, follow through, punctuality, order, and impulse control. The discussion also highlights how measurement works and why it is imperfect. Self report questionnaires can be biased by mood, social desirability, and limited self awareness. Ratings from friends or partners can add perspective, yet they carry their own blind spots. Still, measurement provides a baseline and helps distinguish between changing your self story versus changing your day to day conduct. By treating traits as probabilistic tendencies rather than fixed labels, the book sets up a hopeful but realistic premise: meaningful change is possible, but it typically looks like shifting the odds in your favor, not becoming a totally different person overnight. Secondly, The Evidence for Personality Change Across Adulthood, Many people assume personality is locked in by early adulthood, yet modern longitudinal research suggests a more flexible picture. The book surveys the mainstream scientific view that traits show both stability and movement: individuals keep recognizable patterns, but average levels and personal trajectories can change with time and experience. This is important because it reframes personality change from a fantasy to a phenomenon that researchers can document. Life roles and contexts often correlate with shifts, such as increased conscientiousness when work and family responsibilities intensify or improved emotional stability as people gain coping skills. The book also addresses the difference between passive change and deliberate change. Passive change happens through aging, relationships, career demands, and major disruptions. Deliberate change involves choosing a direction and using structured strategies to reinforce new patterns. The scientific nuance is that traits are not just internal dispositions; they reflect repeated behaviors, reinforced emotions, and learned interpretations of events. When those components change consistently, trait scores can move. A practical takeaway is that change is often incremental and uneven. Readers can expect periods of progress, plateaus, and backslides, especially under stress. The most credible promise is not a personality makeover, but measurable improvement that accumulates over months and years. That framing helps readers set realistic expectations and avoid the discouragement that comes from comparing themselves to ideali...