What identity are you running from?
"Please help, I don't know what to dooo." I moaned to my coach.
I was asking her to help me make a decision about whether to stay at my job or not, and was feeling SO stuck about what to do.
And so we talked about the various options, and she eventually said...
"Sarah, it sounds like you're VERY clear on what you want, so what is actually the problem? What are you protecting yourself from by not leaving your job?"
Oof.
She had hit the nail on the head.
Turns out, I was worried that making this decision meant I was unreliable. That I "just" change my mind.
That I don't know what I want and just keep making one decision after the next.
And because of trying to protect myself from this identity of being unreliable, I was making this decision into something HUGE because this had to be forever - I couldn't possibly make yet another decision after this one!
This pressure on the decision (and the fact that I couldn't see into my forever-future 🧐 to know if I was making the "right" decision) meant I was having even more trouble actually deciding, and was constantly going back and forth on it in my mind.
And guess what I was proving to myself?
Yup.
That I'm unreliable, don't know what I want and can't trust myself to make decisions.
The thing is, this reinforcing nature of unwanted identities is not uncommon. It's the reason we think we have so much "evidence" in support of them.
Consider a common example of laziness. When you're worried you're going to be perceived as being lazy, you don't take the rest and recovery you actually need and you work past your limits. When you're even more exhausted and lacking motivation as a result of this, your inner narrative is, "See?? I'm so lazy! I need to do more".
Cue the endless cycle.
Here's an interesting way to find out what your biggest unwanted identity is:
It's really important to me not to be perceived as ___________
What you fill in on that blank line is most likely the identity (or identities - you may have many) that you protect yourself from, and it is likely to be related to either something you or those around you were criticised for (or praised for not being) early on in life.
The crazy thing is that we carry this around from such an early age, not only resulting in behaviours that tend to end up reinforcing the same narrative for us, but we also tend to be so caught up in making sure we avoid this identity that we tend to make decisions for our life based on that and not what we most want or what is most important to us.
It's important to recognise that not only has this probably been constructed over decades, but it has also been something that has been a form of protection. So don't put pressure on yourself to just suddenly drop all attempts to avoid this unwanted identity.
What we want to do is start exploring it in a way that feels safe but that starts to create some distance between us and the story.
Here are some journal prompts that can help:
What is the origin story of this identity? Where do you think you first learnt that it was an identity to protect yourself from?
What is the definition of this word? Is there a more nuanced way to define it, or a way that you'd like to redefine it for yourself?
What are the requirements for someone to officially have that identity? Is it a fixed personality trait that someone can have?
Can you name instances where it was not true for you? Situations where you weren't e.g. lazy or unreliable?
Does it reflect what you really value or find important? Is this something you genuinely find important or is it an outdated value that you inherited from someone else?
What might your life look like if you continued to live it based on protecting yourself from this identity? What might your life look like if you no longer did?
I'd love to know: What is your biggest unwanted identity? And how have you been trying to protect yourself from it?
