You believe you're not an open person. Maybe you're reserved in groups. Maybe you prefer routine. Maybe you think openness means being spontaneous or adventurous, and you're neither of those things. So you've written yourself off as closed. But there's something you're trying to do or say that requires openness, and you're stuck wondering if you can actually do it. The question isn't whether you can change who you are. It's whether you've been measuring the right thing all along.
What Everyone Gets Wrong About Openness
Most people believe openness means being outgoing, spontaneous, and willing to try new things. It's the trait of someone who travels, takes risks, talks easily to strangers, and embraces whatever comes. This definition gets reinforced everywhere. Personality tests call it extraversion or adventurousness. Self-help books link it to living fully. Social media rewards people who broadcast their explorations. The myth is seductive because it captures something true: openness does involve willingness. But it stops there, mistaking one expression of openness for the whole thing.
The belief feels especially true because it's consistent with how we experience personality in ourselves and others. Introverts notice they don't crave novelty the way their outgoing friends do. They prefer their routines. They're skeptical of things they haven't tested. And from that observation, the logic seems airtight: they must be closed. But this reasoning conflates openness to new experiences with the personality traits that typically go with it. It's like assuming someone who doesn't like football must not value competition. The association is common, but it's not causal.
A Person Who Couldn't Admit What He Actually Valued
A man in his forties worked in finance. Stable income, clear career path, predictable week-to-week structure. He'd been in the same relationship for fifteen years. He had friends, hobbies, a routine that worked. By every external measure, he was fine. But in conversations with his partner about the future, he kept deflecting. When she asked what he wanted, he'd say "whatever makes you happy" or "we'll figure it out." It wasn't avoidance exactly. He genuinely didn't know.
His partner eventually got frustrated. She said he was closed off, unwilling to be vulnerable or take any real risk with her. He believed her. He thought his cautiousness, his preference for what he knew, his skepticism about grand changes—all of it was proof that he lacked openness. He decided he needed to be more spontaneous. He suggested trips he didn't want to take. He tried to manufacture vulnerability in conversations. It felt fake because it was. His partner sensed the performance and pulled away more.
What was actually happening: he valued security and stability deeply, and that's not the opposite of openness. He was open to genuine alternatives—genuinely open to exploring what his partner actually wanted, genuinely open to shifting his priorities if there was real reason to. But he was rightly skeptical of grand gestures that didn't match what either of them actually cared about. His real problem wasn't lack of openness. It was that he couldn't name what he valued, so he couldn't explain why he made the choices he did. His partner read silence as refusal. He read her frustration as proof he was broken.
What Is Actually Going On
Schwartz's theory of basic human values, developed in 1992 and tested across more than 80 countries, identifies openness to change as something far more specific than personality type. In Schwartz's framework, openness isn't about how many new experiences you seek. It's about whether you're motivated by understanding, growth, and novel ideas as fundamental goods—or whether you're motivated by something else. It sits on a circular map of values, positioned opposite to conservation, which emphasizes stability, tradition, and continuity. These aren't personality traits. They're what you actually care about at a fundamental level.
The circumplex model shows something crucial: values that sit adjacent on the circle are compatible. Values that sit opposite create tension. Someone high in openness and low in conservation tends toward intellectual exploration, creative expression, and willingness to question the status quo. Someone high in conservation and low in openness tends toward preserving what works, honoring tradition, and managing risk carefully. Neither is broken. Neither lacks something essential. They have different priorities. The person in the example above had high conservation values. That's not a lack of openness in the Schwartz sense. It's a genuine orientation toward stability as something good.
But here's what matters: understanding your actual values is itself an openness move. You can be conservative in your preferences and genuinely open to new information about yourself and others. You can be someone who loves routine and still be open to changing your mind when evidence appears. The myth conflates openness with extraversion or novelty-seeking, so people who are reserved, stable, or tradition-minded assume they're closed. They then try to force themselves into the outgoing mold. It doesn't work because they're solving the wrong problem. They don't lack openness. They lack clarity about what they actually value and why.
What Changes When You See It Clearly
When you stop equating openness with spontaneity, you can stop performing a version of yourself that doesn't fit. You can stop feeling like you should want what you don't actually want. If you're someone who prefers stability and deep continuity, you can own that as a real value, not as a character flaw you need to fix. That clarity makes you more trustworthy to others, not less. You can have genuine conversations about what you actually care about instead of apologizing for not caring about the right things. Your partner, your friends, your colleagues—they can know who you actually are.
This shift also makes you genuinely more open in the ways that matter. When you're not exhausted from pretending to be spontaneous, you have energy to consider perspectives that actually challenge you. When you're not defensive about your preferences, you can hear real criticism without assuming it's an attack on who you are. Knowing where you stand makes you able to move. The people who seem most flexible and adaptable aren't usually the ones performing openness. They're the ones clear enough about their values that they can adjust specific choices without feeling like they're betraying themselves.
The My Values assessment surfaces what you actually care about, ranks them in order, and shows you where you're living them and where you're not. That's the real work.
Is openness the same as being outgoing?
No. Openness to change, in Schwartz's framework, is about whether you're motivated by understanding and growth as core values. Extraversion is a personality trait about how much social stimulation you prefer. Many introverts score high in openness to change because they care about ideas and growth, even if they don't like large parties. Many extroverts score high in conservation because they value social bonds and tradition, even though they're energized by people.
Can someone who likes routine be truly open?
Yes, absolutely. Preferring routine is often a sign of high conservation values, which Schwartz identified as fundamental. Someone with high conservation can be genuinely open to changing their mind when presented with new evidence, to hearing opposing views, and to growing in ways that matter to them. Openness and conservation are opposite on the values circle, but most people hold some of both. The question is which direction you lean, not whether you have openness at all.
What if I value both stability and growth?
Most people do. Schwartz's circular model shows that values fall on spectrums and intersect. You might prioritize stability in your relationships but openness in your work. Or you might care deeply about both tradition and intellectual exploration. The point isn't to be pure in one direction. It's to know which way you genuinely lean so you can make intentional choices instead of fighting yourself.
Does understanding my values actually change anything?
It changes how you communicate about yourself and how others perceive you. When you can say "I genuinely prioritize stability and I'm choosing to question this assumption because the evidence matters," people hear confidence, not defensiveness. You stop wasting energy trying to be what you think you should be, and you can direct that energy toward the things you actually care about and the ways you genuinely can grow.