Changing My Personality

Changing My Personality

Like most people, I have a nickname that is a part of my given name.  When I was a kid, the only people that used that nickname were family (and they still do).  As a child, I was painfully shy.  I would cry if someone looked at me wrong.  I was comfortable with people that I knew but others . . . nope!  When I was entering high school, Mom moved us to a different state.  I didn’t like being so shy and I thought that this was a great opportunity to change.  I knew no one at my new school.  I knew no one my age.  The only people I knew were adults in my mother’s and grandmother’s generations.  This was the time to make a change!

And, change, I did.  I decided to use my nickname exclusively.  I felt that the names represented two distinct people.  I used my nickname to introduce myself to my new classmates.  I forced myself to talk to people, to start conversations, to participate, to be a different person that I had been before the move.  I decided to become more outgoing.

It wasn’t easy or comfortable.  I was following the advice of “fake it until you make it” and it worked.  People who know me now would be surprised that I was so shy in my youth.

Would I have gotten here without the move to another state?  I like to think so.  I hope that who I am now is who I was destined to be at this point in my life.  

This transformation is ongoing.  It has not stopped throughout my life.  Even when someone was able to stunt my personal growth for a while, I was able to get past that once they were out of my life. 

It takes a great deal of inner strength and stubbornness but it can be done.  If someone wants to change, they can.  I am proof of that.