How to Cultivate a New Personality

There are days where we all wake up and wish we were a different person. Well, today is the day you stop talking the talk and start walking a new walk. According to the American ethos, the world is a “land of opportunity” where it is up to us to decide who we want to be.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Imagine your ideal person. Don’t think too hard because personalities are much like fashion trends. Just run with the first thing that comes to mind, even if it’s abstract or outside of the “human kingdom.”
2. Begin practicing specific affectations of this personality. Perform some character studies on actors, public figures, or friends who you feel embody these traits.
3. Find some props. There are those obvious ones like the French film snob who smokes with a cigarette stem or that never-going-to-marry, die-hard dumpster-diving vegan who walks around the dark cloud of a hood, but try to be more creative. If you are going for a “New England Prophet,” try walking with a buoy on a stick.
4. Develop new tastes. Start dropping hints when you are with your friends that you are really into this new band or collecting rocks.
5. Take your new persona seriously. If you want a good example, pick up a book of poems by the Portuguese poet, Fernando Pessoa. According to him, his “alternate” identities have become so substantiated in his mind that he worries about what he will say when he runs into them on the street.
6. Remember that personalities can be exchanged. If you feel yourself growing out of one, try on a new one?