Become Wiser & Happier

"What are your resolutions for 2019?"

Why do we have the urge to make new resolutions each time a new year is about to begin? Very often it is a pursuit to man's greatest desire: happiness. Making sure 2019 turns out to be a happier year than this one.

The resolutions are endless and vary in specification, determination, and priority. However, in general, most of the resolutions can be summed up in this way: make good decisions, be generally likable, preferably loved, and thereby feel happy and good about yourself.

As such, commerce and social media flood us with all sorts of advice on how to do so. Each advice promotes a certain attitude and we often take what we feel most comfortable with. But really, what we often feel best with is actually what we have been doing all along. And so, the next year passes with the same mistakes, the same kind of regrets and the circle continues.

The road to a happier year seems like a narrow, hidden side road and lucky are the ones who find it. But as proven, it can be found. On one condition: you need to get out of your comfort zone—psychologically. How? By doing the one thing most people neglect to do when they make new year resolutions: improving their personality.

Why improve your personality?

"But I'm happy the way I am!"

Well, I'm sure you are. Generally, everybody is. So hold your horses, this is not about you being not you anymore. No, this is about you becoming a better you. Look at it this way: when people make the new year resolutions, aren't they just ways to improve themselves in a certain aspect? For example, the resolution to quit smoking—isn't it a way to improve their health? How about spending more time with family and friends? Isn't that a way to improve their relationships with others?

Improving your personality does not necessarily mean a personality change. Consider it like a software update minus the drawbacks. True, external factors, such behaviour of others, can influence our happiness. Nevertheless, they don't need to be the deciding factors. What could be the deciding factor is—our way of thinking.

What is a personality?

Let's have brief look at what a personality is. Putting Myers-Briggs in layman's term: a personality is the result of the way we think, the result of the way we process information and experience.

The MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) is a psychological theory that has fashioned personality tests taken worldwide. The test primarily helps you to know yourself better. However, originally, it was developed for another reason: helping people get along. Herein is where the art of improving your personality lies.

Improving your personality—how?

The MBTI outlines different personalities. The goal as it was being developed was to help people get along with each other by helping them to understand and appreciate the way the other person thinks. Why do we call someone stupid or find certain people weird? More often than not, according to the research, it is simply because we fail to understand the way that person thinks. However, when we learn to understand them, we will also adapt our way of communicating with them. After all, miscommunication is what breeds misunderstandings.

One of the research's conclusions is, the more you learn to get along with different kinds of people, the more your personality will improve. Now how does this work?

The Benefits of Understanding & Appreciating Others

People often tend to judge people to see whether the others fit within their own frame of what they define as "normal". However, the MBTI promotes another way of viewing people: if you can't understand their way of thinking, learn to do so and appreciate the difference, rather than immediately disapprove of it.

What are the benefits?

• You learn to view things from another perspective. And learning to see things from a different point of view teaches you new lessons about life, new ways to become happier.
• You learn that just because a certain way of thinking and doing things is different from the way you've always been used to, it does not necessarily mean it's bad. When you learn to appreciate the positive differences in the way people think, you could discover something that could enrich your own life.
• When you learn to appreciate the different ways people think, you will find it easier to adapt to a more positive attitude. Understanding people helps not to take things personally. Which takes us to the next benefit.
• As you display that understanding and appreciation in the way you treat and communicate with others, life will surprise you with good relationships. Why? Because by improving your personality, you become a better friend, spouse, family member.

Understanding and appreciating others has a domino effect that leads to a happier year. It takes time though, not only for the change to have an effect but also for your personality to improve. But remember, no happiness is attained without patience and endurance.

On a last note, the MBTI was developed towards the end of the Second World War, a period where having such peaceable qualities was needed more than ever.