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Personality determines tendencies.

Character determines choices.

Some of us hide behind personality to avoid the hard work of character-building.

“That’s just how I am,” she said.

To which I politely asked: “Are you describing your personality – or are you excusing your behavior?”

So was the start of some of the most challenging, albeit enlightening, coaching sessions that I’ve ever facilitated.

You see, that question immediately forced a “self-awareness moment” for my client (for privacy purposes, let’s call her “Marti”).

Of course, defensiveness and deflection followed as she wrestled through the internal dialogue that arises when one’s comfort of identity is disturbed. It always takes time to process new realizations that we discover about our temperament. After all, these kinds of revelations inevitably cut to questions about our character, too.

Before I share the results of my time with Marti, let’s explore this point for a moment. It is a significant one.

Personality Changes Are Really Hard

We can think of our personalities as our pre-programmed default settings. Our energy levels, emotional reactivity tendencies and cognitive processing styles are pretty much set early in life. We don’t tend to reengineer our nervous systems in........

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