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If you think “I have no personality,” you aren’t alone. However, while you may think or feel that you are personality-less, you do have a personality.
You may just have a very small or reserved personality and come across as cold and distant. You feel powerless, disconnected, or stunted. But in the company of your tribe, you may come out of your shell and discover that you do, in fact, have a personality.
That’s what happened to me. I never thought that I had much of a personality, being shy and introverted. I was constantly told that I was too introverted, reserved, and shy. I kept to myself, but I also became highly agreeable and a people-pleaser.
Yet, when I met my soul tribe, I realized that I had a personality. It took some time for the real me to come out of my shell, but my personality was there – hidden under layers of protective armor.
If you’re worried that you have no personality, check out these signs and my action plan for how you can become a more interesting person.
Can You Really Have Zero Personality?
Every person has a personality, even if you don’t think you have a personality or much of one. Researchers in the psychology field have spent a lot of time studying personalities, and your personality is based on various factors, such as:
- What you like and dislike
- Your opinions
- How you think
- What motivates you
- How you behave in situations
- Your values
- Your concept of self
Your personality is built on the experiences you’ve accumulated over your lifetime. It sets you apart from others, and no two people can have the exact same personality.
Interestingly, a study found that you may think you have no personality when you haven’t been given a compliment.
In an open-ended writing exercise, the researchers asked more than 100 participants to describe what “no personality” vs “lots of personality” means, and the participants had to nominate a fictional character in each category.
Kramer from Seinfeld and Spider-Man won as the characters with the most personality, and Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory and Angela Martin and Toby Flenderson from The Office were voted as having no personality.
The participants deemed the Sheldons, Angelas, and Tobys of the world as reserved, quiet, boring, lacking charisma, and bland. They aren’t memorable or unique and have no distinguishing preferences.
11 Signs that I Don’t Have a Personality
Do you identify with the Sheldons and Angelas?
If you are worried that you have no personality, here are signs that you may not have much of a personality:
1. I’m Very Reserved
By hiding who you are, people don’t know enough about you to form an opinion of you, and they also can’t decide what you are like. You don’t have to share all your ins and outs with everyone, but you should open up and share with people close to you.
A bad experience may have made you more reserved, but you shouldn’t keep people out because of one incident. Our personality develops based on our interaction with people, who all shape us and our personalities.
If you keep hiding, you will never reach your potential personality as you exist in a void.
2. I Don’t Really Express What I Think
When you are confident in yourself, you have enough personality to share what you are thinking. If you never share, it can mean you are afraid and lack the personality to face up to criticism for your thoughts.
Worse, it can also mean you don’t think about stuff. Help develop thoughts and the originality to share by reading, exposing yourself to unique topics for discussion, and forming opinions.
Don’t be too tough on yourself if you never share what you think. Chances are that you don’t have supportive people to share with and you have legitimate concerns about sharing your thoughts. So find new people to hang out with.
By forming an opinion, people will see you as having principles, standing for something, and being self-assured. They tend to look at your personality as being more favorable then.
3. I Don’t Have Values and Principles
If you really have no personality, you will fold like a deck of cards when people apply pressure to you, which makes you weak. Build strength of character by deciding what your boundaries are and what bottom line you won’t cross.
Principles and values help you show people you have inner strength, opinions, and integrity. You are constant in what you accept and don’t accept. Consistency helps people know who you are and what you’re like – aka that’s your personality.
4. I Don’t Show or Share How I Feel
We all have feelings, even if the feeling we experience most is fear. Hiding our feelings means we stand isolated from everyone else. As humans, we should share our feelings as it allows people to connect with us and feel seen.
When you share your feelings and express your emotions, you become someone that others can relate to in an authentic manner.
If someone relates to your feelings, they may connect enough to actually like you. Should they not like you, they will at least see you as human.
Being seen as emotionless means you appear artificial and without personality.
5. I Live a Restrictive Life
In the Western cultures, we tend to define ourselves as our jobs, which is a very lopsided view of who you are and what your personality should be. The restrictions that result from this can lead to your personality not fully developing.
Don’t close yourself off to opportunities for growth. You have a life beyond the basic things you do each day. While you work in IT, you may also have mad dog training skills, paint on weekends, and go hiking with the local club during the holidays.
All these things contribute to making a more rounded personality and they make you interesting.
6. I Agree to Everything and Don’t Say No
Agreeableness can be a virtue, but in excess, it can also be a sign you live in fear and never stand up for yourself or your beliefs. Essentially, you’re a pushover.
A pushover is someone who has no idea who they are, and they don’t have a personality. They’ll say yes to everything out of fear.
Being assertive and standing up for what you believe in builds character, which is a sign of a diverse and interesting personality. In trying to fit in, you may end up being ostracized when you say yes to everything.
Start valuing what you enjoy, what you believe in, and what you want. Build preferences and you will know what’s valuable to you and create your own ideas, goals, and dreams so you will decide what’s good for you.
7. I People-Please
Oh, are you a “yes, dear” person? Yeah, you agree with everything, but you take it one step further. You actually lie and make up stories to keep everyone happy (except yourself).
It’s more important that you please people you look up to than ensuring you honor who you are.
While it’s not a bad thing to make others happy, that shouldn’t be the basis for your personality. It means you are nothing when people around you aren’t happy. You tie who you are to others, which will eventually “draw and quarter” you when you can’t ensure happiness for others.
You can only please yourself. If people are pleased with you, that’s a reward but not the foundation of who you are.
8. I’m Afraid of Being Rejected
When you are so focused on making others happy, you soon develop a fear of rejection. What if people no longer approve of you? It translates into fear, which makes you pull yourself back into your shell where nobody can see you and get to know you.
Fearing rejection causes your personality to shrink like a seedling fading under a desert sun. You are so worried about the opinions of others that you forget you have your own opinions. Instead, you look outward, when you should look inward.
9. I Have Low Self-Worth
Nobody seems to like you, so why should you like yourself, right? Wrong!
You should like yourself for who you are. Discover yourself, dive into shadow work, and determine what you feel. This is how you find out what your personality is. Don’t let low self-worth pull you down and destroy your personality.
When you feel like you’re not good enough, you will also feel your personality is something to be ashamed of, causing you to hide it.
Being more concerned with what you see as likable personality traits, you may destroy your authentic personality and create a bland mash-up of surface-level traits that end up not being a personality at all.
So, before you decide you have no personality, take a personality test, then decide whether you have been hiding from yourself in favor of an ugly pizza personality (something of everything on it).
10. You Are Stuck in Your Life’s Journey
“What’s your purpose in life?” Oh, how we hate this question as it instantly places this huge responsibility on us to be something grand. We end up feeling like our lives are small and meaningless, forgetting that life is a journey.
When you focus on what you’re supposed to do in life, you get stuck on a speed bump in the road. Instead of going forward, you repeat everything until you lose all motivation and enthusiasm. You become as dull and unmoving as a statue.
Knowing you are stuck, you search for answers in the lives of others, which is not where the answers lie. You don’t form opinions (other than to judge yourself), and you begin to see yourself as a copy of everyone else out there – totally ununique.
11. I Struggle to Describe Myself
“Tell me about yourself.”
These words instantly reduce your personality to zero when you aren’t self-aware or interested in your interests. You should be able to describe yourself and tell people who you are, something about your interests, and what you believe in.
Only when you value yourself and your uniqueness will you be able to explain that to others.
Even if you don’t always like yourself, you should be able to tell others something about who you are. By describing your nature, you can also learn about yourself, even if it’s that you need to change.
An Action Plan: How to Develop a (More of a) Personality
While you ultimately have to be authentically you, you also need to survive and thrive in this world. So it’s a good idea to work on your personality skills – even if just for your sake.
Follow this action plan to discover who you are and showcase your personality when you’re out and about:
Step 1: Identify That You Lack Lots of Personality
You can’t have zero personality but you may be quite reserved. To change, you must identify how much personality you have.
Ask yourself:
- When was the first time you felt like you didn’t have any personality? Why did you think that?
- Have people made comments about your personality? What did they say?
- Why do you think you don’t have lots of personality? What signs do you identify with?
- Is there a reason why you feel unsafe to share your personality with others?
Step 2: Learn to Overcome Self-Doubt
Self-doubt, overthinking, being self-conscious, and past trauma can all contribute to you keeping your personality under wraps.
When you are drowning in negative self-talk, you feel less motivated to live your best life, socialize, and work on your personality.
To overcome self-doubt and limiting self-beliefs:
- Practice self-love, self-kindness, and self-compassion.
- Exchange your inner critic for healthy self-talk.
- Practice a few affirmations daily.
- Find a support system.
- Validate yourself.
- Focus on your strengths, goals, and achievements.
Step 3: Meditate
When your brain’s default mode network (DMN) is set to hiding from others and keeping to yourself, you may feel like you have no personality.
Meditation can help reduce DMN activity, and it has various other benefits, such as decreasing stress and anxiety, cultivating self-awareness, and increasing compassion.
Use apps like Balance, Calm, and Headspace or listen to YouTube meditations to help you find inner calm, especially when you feel stressed about social situations.
Step 4: Journal to Self-Discover
When you lack personality, start journaling to discover who you are and develop more of a personality.
Use your journal to:
- Write about your likes and dislikes, values and moral compass, and what matters to you
- Discover how you feel about things and make your opinions and thoughts heard
- Work on your self-worth
Step 5: Don’t Compare Yourself with Others
Comparing yourself to others is an easy way to stifle your personality as you try to be more like those you admire. But losing your uniqueness by following others isn’t okay.
Take a break from social media, spend time with yourself, practice gratitude, celebrate others, and compete with only yourself.
Step 6: Find Your Tribe
Your tribe could be your soul friends, like-minded people, or anyone you feel you can be your authentic self when they are around. You feel safe around these people.
When you lack personality, it’s essential to engage in hobbies and passion projects so you can slowly show more of your personality and feel safe to do so.
Step 7: Become a Storyteller
If you lack personality, it’s likely that you don’t have interesting conversations with others or your stories are bland, long-winded, and repetitive. People nod off, leave, or just never talk to you again.
To become more interesting, master the art of telling stories and work on your communication (and conversation skills).
Learn how to ask open-ended questions, express your opinions in a polite yet authentic way, and practice telling stories to yourself in the mirror or with a loved one you trust.
Step 8: Create Personality Goals
You should also set personality goals. The easiest way to do this is to make a list of personality traits you admire and then plan how you can cultivate these characteristics.
But don’t be a copycat. Make those personality traits your own.
Final Thoughts for “I Have No Personality”
It’s not easy to live while feeling like you have no personality, especially when you’re surrounded by people who seem like they overflow in the personality department.
If you lack personality, it’s likely that you are reserved, highly agreeable, and a people-pleaser. You also rarely – if ever – express an opinion or thought, choosing rather to keep to yourself.
But you can develop a personality. Start by identifying why you feel like you have no personality, work on overcoming self-doubt, meditate and journal, stop comparing yourself to others, and set personality goals.
Someone who is effervescent has personality in spades. See which of the signs of a bubbly personality you can cultivate.
And if you're looking for more articles about personality types, be sure to check out these blog posts:
- 15 Signs You Have a Very Intense Personality
- 21 Signs Someone is a High Vibration Person
- 101 Neutral Personality Traits Most Common in People
Finally, if you want to identify YOUR personality type, then take one of these 11 personality tests to better understand what makes you tick.
