The Game Changing Attorney Podcast with Michael Mogill

28. Ben Hardy — Personality Isn’t Permanent

Oct 6, 2020

43:09

"Zoom out on a person and look at their life over a decade — it's obvious they're not the same person." - Ben Hardy

What does Dr. Hardy mean when he asserts our personalities are not permanent?
How can reassessing your past change the course of your future?
What are “forcing functions,” and how can they turbo-charge achieving your goals?
How can you overcome fear of future uncertainties?

Personality Isn't Permanent: Why Your Past Doesn't Define You

According to Dr. Benjamin Hardy, there were no clues in his past that he would become who he is today — an organizational psychologist with a PhD and best-selling author of Personality Isn't Permanent and Willpower Doesn't Work.

We hear the incredible origin story that led him to become an expert on how and why people change — because he did it himself. Those intrinsic character traits that define you as a person, whether you like them or not? Ben says they're not as permanent as you've been led to believe.

Everyone Changes: How to Transform Trauma...and Your Life

Everybody changes, but how can you have a hand in which course your life takes? Ben Hardy wants to put you back in control of your destiny, and it's all about mindset. He believes that everything you do now is setting your future self up for failure or disaster.

By explaining the impact of trauma on our personality, Ben elaborates and shares with us the mindset and key techniques required to become emotionally developed — plus why you should regularly evaluate how you view your past, choosing compassion over criticism, in order to impact your future.

Future Hyper-Focus: How You Can Force Goal Fulfilment

Everything we do is driven by goals, so it makes sense to harness that to enact change. Ben shares his thoughts on setting clear goals and making them part of your identity, and he explains why measuring progress is key.

Want to turbo-charge your goal-clearing ability? By following Ben's forcing functions, we can actually literally force ourselves to achieve what we thought was impossible.

Key takeaways:

Change your perspective. If you're serious about creating the future you want, you're required to make a shift in how you see things.
All behaviour is goal-driven, even if it's not immediately apparent. The more clear we can be on our goals, the more meaningful the results will be.
Force yourself to act. By using Ben's idea of forcing functions, or situational constraints, we enable ourselves to create the results we want.

Links and Resources