Many people in Alcoholics Anonymous don't actually do the 12 steps as designed by Bill Wilson. They don't understand that it's a piece of spiritual technology designed to produce a spiritual awakening and a reorganization of personality. I've met many people who have become better people through the 12 steps.

I've rewritten them here to give a basic outline and remove any mention of a theistic god. I am not a professional so please forgive me if I've over-simplified or got something wrong. This is how it worked for me at a basic level.

1 - Take a look and see if you have a problem. Admit you have a problem if you have one. You can't fix a problem you refuse to recognize.

2 - Recognize you've tried to solve it by yourself and have failed. You need help from others.

3 - Humble yourself enough to ask for help and be ready to follow direction

4 - List all the complaints people have about you and analyze what you might be doing wrong

5 - Share your failings, no matter how embarrassing, with a trusted other on the principle that confession is good for the soul and sunlight is the best disinfectant

6 - Ask yourself if you're really willing to change. That's not a given. Maybe you aren't.

7 - If you are then do what it takes to change. This is going to be different for everyone.

8 - Look at step 4 and see who you need to apologize to

9 - When you feel you are ready and sufficiently reformed, apologize and make restitution to those on the list you made in step 8. To those that aren't willing to talk, let it go and don't bother them.

10 - Make it a practice to do steps 4 through 9 as needed. We believe in progress not perfection.

11 - We need to remind ourselves daily that we have a problem that we can't solve alone and that we may need the help of others on any given day. I've heard it called a disease of forgetfulness. We may need to wake up in the morning to read and pray if so inclined. As one person told me, "carve out a little piece of each day for the 12 steps"

12 - Carry this message to others who are still suffering

I do believe that we can change our internal responses by slowly teaching ourselves to respond differently.

However I also believe that thinking about thinking is a dangerous activity. The risks are training yourself to be neurotic, and a habit of overthinking.

We can use our rational minds to change our irrational responses.

However how many people are skilled at teaching themselves? We could look at how good they are at teaching others (especially emotional kids).

A year from now, it'd be interesting to see how hen is doing.

(I'm not asserting that personality is fixed; rather, I'm asserting that 6 weeks is too short a measurement period, and that most of us are not very good at self-assessment)

To tired to pick a apart this article now. But this is feel good nonsense... Just one example, mindfulness is not even a fraction as effective as most people claim. It always fall apart when you do a proper study with actual measurable effects on life and happiness as outcome.

Also, 6 weeks is nothing. When I worked at inpatient unit we sometimes needed 6 weeks before patient reverted to baseline personality after admittance. This is just as silly as saying that you changed your lifestyle permanently with regard exercises after just a few weeks into your new year's resolution. You MIGHT have, but lets wait untill next year and see if the permanent claim is true.

You don't become more extroverted, but you can improve your social skills.

You don't become less neurotic, but you can learn to manage stress, or just avoid stressful situations altogether with proper planning.

You don't become more agreeable, but you can learn to become more considerate.

You don't become more conscientious, but you can make a framework to complete your tasks: schedules, checklists, etc...

You don't become more open, but you can educate yourself on opposing viewpoints.

Also understand that the "big 5" are not stats to maximize, while some traits are linked to success, they all have downsides. Extroverts and people high in agreeableness tend to follow the group even when it is wrong, lacking personal judgment. People low in neuroticism can get themselves into trouble because they didn't consider the negative consequences of their choices. Conscientious people can be rigid and obsessive, and there is such a thing as being too open (are you open to murder?).

The idea is: don't change your personality, you will probably fail anyways, but make the best of what you have, by making small adjustments. Ultimately, I think it is what the article suggests, once you take away the "big 5 scoring" bit.

Shifting from a Freudian paradigm to an Adlerian one has been massive. I’d rather be an accountable self-determining adult than an adult who attributes my flaws to traumas long gone.

If you’re serious about self-directed change, Adler is a good place to start.

My bet is loads of people would have shot way up on the neuroticism scale.

Or maybe that's just my personality speaking, being stoic and content.

But, open neurotics are the funnest people.

The first is the gospel of Mark, which unlike the other synoptic gospels starts with Jesus, probably around the age of 30, coming across John the Baptist and being baptized. Subsequently, Jesus went off into the desert where he prayed for 40 days.

Second is the alchemical process of creating the philosophers stone. Jung argued that this was a description of a process akin to individuation. He believed that what was on the surface metallurgical work (transmuting lead to gold) was actually an obscure formula for remaking the psyche, from whatever was pre-programmed by society into what the individual actually wanted. This process was said to take 40 days.

I think a big trap is mistaking who we are from who we appear to be. Some people try to "seem" a particular way, thinking that they can only change their appearance, like changing one's clothes. The alchemical view that Jung put forward was a bit more radical, suggesting that we can fundamentally change ourselves.

Many people in our modern society experiment on themselves to change their physical bodies and to change their minds. I believe it is interesting to consider similar experimentation on how we change our spirit/emotions.

Personality matters only because it allows health professionals to differentiate what is a problem from what is not.

It's not so hard to change behavior when mental health is not an obstacle or is not involved. Changing personality sounds like a nice luxury for people who don't have mental health problems or personality disorders

And even then, I don't really see the point of changing personality, since a personality is not a real problem, only personality disorders (the medical term) really are problems.

And then there are thought patterns that can be shaped by mental illness that stay even after symptoms go away, those might be changed with CBT.