The tighter you hold onto “that’s just how I am,” the harder it is to become someone better.

Describing a behaviour as your nature turns it into something nobody can ask you to change, including you. It is a comfortable position because it removes the work, and the cost is that it also removes the possibility. Most of what gets filed under personality is habit that has been running long enough to feel permanent.

Notice when you reach for that phrase this week and what it is protecting. Then pick the smallest version of the trait and act against it once. Not a new character, just evidence that the thing is movable.