| | | | | Welcome to the Thursday edition of the Future Coach newsletter. This week, I'm responding to your question about how you — or anyone — can change for the better. It came up after my last column on what shapes your personality. Now, you can leave me a voice note (Click here and tap to record 🎤) or write me at futurecoach@washpost.com. I hope to hear from you soon. |  | | Kim Mailes asked: Can one “reinvent” themselves altruistically in later years by pursuing a worthwhile mission that is better and bigger than oneself, or pursuing a new purpose simply adding a new layer onto preexisting personality and inclinations? If you’re waiting for the thunderbolt of a big life event to change you, it probably won’t work. A 2024 meta-analysis that covered 44 different studies found only modest effects on personality from major life events in isolation. A first job, a new relationship, marriage and divorce showed the strongest effects on personality changes. But life events can be a catalyst. The true engines for change are repetition and one’s sense of self. As it turns out, the first can transform the second. An influential theory of long-term personality development, published by psychologists Cornelia Wrzus and Brent W. Roberts in 2017, posits that repeated short-term actions lead to long-term personality development. The basic idea is that many situations in daily life trigger expectations, emotional states, and reactions. These moments can be harnessed to reshape who we are by allowing us to consciously reflect on how to respond and over time turning these intentional responses into automatic habits. It’s a virtuous cycle: Goals shift behavior. Behavior alters our sense of self. This encourages more behavior in line with the goal. If you want to be more generous, try allocating $100 to a dedicated checking account for giving. Then schedule a time every week to give one dollar away. It might feel hard at first to set aside $100 and then click donate each week. But soon, giving may become second nature. The satisfaction of helping others reinforces the behavior. It becomes much easier to see yourself as someone who generously helps others, even if it’s $1,000. Effective behavioral interventions vary widely: Concrete ‘if-then’ action plans on how to respond to particular situations, daily reflection journals, smartphone prompts and other actions have all delivered meaningful and durable results in studies. Over months and years, these repeated daily loops across your life can permanently shift what we do and, therefore, who we are. Fake it till you make it, you could say. Trying to become a better person by suppressing negative impulses, on its own, is exhausting without a positive alternative. What often works is using this same intention, effort and commitment to act, in small ways, toward the bigger goal. 🎥 Must-watch |  | | Mariana Sarawaqa stands among the mangroves she planted to help protect the shoreline in Fiji in March 2025. | | Mangroves are taking root again. The trees — which anchor wetlands, act as ecological nurseries and store enormous amounts of carbon — are unexpectedly expanding after decades of deforestation. Since 2010, the tree species have gained more range than they’ve lost, thanks to their remarkable resiliency, according to research in the journal Science. They’re not out of the woods yet. Old-growth mangrove forests are still being lost, while others are being degraded. But, the Nature Conservancy argues, halting that decline, doubling the protected area of habitat and restoring half of recently lost mangroves is possible. |  | | Reporting my column this week about birth order and personality, I was struck by how much our personalities shape our perception of reality. To test this idea, ask a brother or sister about the formative family events during your childhood. You may share some. After all, 40 to 60 percent of the variance in personality traits between people, twin studies suggest, are genetic. But your siblings may scarcely recall events that profoundly shaped your life, or be remembered in a totally different light. “It’s surprising how often you have completely different recollections of what is objectively the same event,” says Ted Schwaba, a psychologist and assistant professor at Michigan State University who studies personality development and behavioral genetics. ”A small event that doesn’t register to one person might be really what matters to you.” For those who want to shift their personality, the consequences are profound. Potentially traumatizing or painful events in the past, given time and concerted effort, may be experienced completely differently today. | | | | Many of you shared fascinating answers to the question: What’s most shaped your personality? “Failure comes to mind,” wrote Mike of Bayfield, Wisconsin. Religion came up: Being Jewish in Fargo, North Dakota; faith and reading the Bible. Divorce and marriage were common factors. Christina mentioned the influence of “a long marriage to someone with the traits I seek to improve in myself.” Many of you also credited your own efforts. “I have realized over the years that my strategy for adaptation was to be a pleaser so that I could make new friends quickly,” wrote one reader. “It has taken me years to overcome these traits, which I did in my professional life more successfully than in my personal life.” Rich wrote that what changed him was the decision to accept himself as gay: “That process (I was young) revealed to me my strength, how durable I was.” Sue had another type of journey. “I kind of hate to say it, but drugs,” she wrote, “especially LSD.” “It changed my personality (for the better, I think) many years ago, in that it made me more compassionate, outgoing, [and] adventurous,” she said. You can send feedback or ideas for what I should cover next using this form. - AI is reshaping the U.S. economy (some manufacturing jobs and rents are up, but stability may have decreased) and writing congressional politicians’ speeches. But is it safe? Tech workers tell New York City AI is moving too fast, while Trump allies are sidelining AI-safety advocates.
- The Supreme Court is hearing a case involving cities that want to hold Big Oil liable for climate change. A cold “blob” south of Greenland hints the Atlantic current is already slowing. Fossil fuels are still expanding, but renewables are slowly displacing them. Global fossil-fuel emissions should fall in 2026 (thanks to the Hormuz crisis and a switch to EVs), while the world appears to be “on the cusp” of declines in electricity sector emissions. (Climate Brink, the Telegraph, Carbon Brief)
- Local restaurants are rebuilding New York Harbor’s oyster reefs. IKEA launched a second-hand furniture marketplace. Forests aren’t regrowing after extreme wildfires as the climate heats up. Border agents in Arizona felled a “grandmother” tree, estimated to be as much as 250 years old, for the border wall after arresting activists who lived in it for months.
|  | | The "grandmother" cottonwood tree in Lochiel, Arizona, on Sept. 24. | | Send your questions to me at futurecoach@washpost.com. I read all your emails. See you next week, Michael Coren, Future Coach Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here to get The Future Coach in your inbox every Tuesday. | | |
