Do You Change Or Is It Only Identity Shifting When Lifequakes Hit?
Why does big change feel like a change to your identity?
Some people say, "This changed my life," when a significant event occurs, but what if that statement doesn't genuinely capture the experience? In truth, it might be more accurate to say, "This changed my identity." Our core selves remain constant, but experiences and transitions cause shifts in our identities.
Philosophically, this truth of the real you is about traits, such as persistence and resilience. We, as individuals, persist through our lives. Our memories, morals, values, and essential character traits endure despite the many changes we encounter.
When we talk about professionals, that’s an identity that comes with specific requirements, such as training, credentials, ethics, and mentorship. It’s not who you are. It’s like a layer of clothing you put on and it goes with your name.
What is the first thing you are given in life and the only thing that you take with you into death? It’s your name. So, yes, your name is part of who you are. Everything else you attach to it is an identity.
When we talk about giftedness that’s a specific combination of characteristics that informs us and the world how we process information, experiences, sensations, and thoughts. Because giftedness is set in the brain we are born with, giftedness is not an identity or label because it is part of who we are.
Why Is Who You Are More Important Than What You Do?
Jason Feifer makes a case for getting to the truth of who you are, without fabrications or imitations in Facing Change? This Is the First Thing You Should Do. He emphasizes knowing who you are is far more important than saying what you do.
Here’s a lesson learned after 30 years of trials, tribulations, triumphs, and tough love truth that put my wheels back on the track of life I am supposed to travel: What you do matters, not one bit unless you know who you are. Your survival, ability to work, income, and connections with other humans depends on your understanding of who you are.
The world does not want what you do. People want who you are and your ability to connect with them, touch their hearts, and perform an act of service or kindness that will transport them from where they are now to someplace else because you showed up and connected.
“What do you do?” is a big, dumb, lazy question.
For decades and a lifetime of networking events, professional conferences, and job interviews, I’ve had to redirect the lazy question—“What do you do?” to a better question. My response is always, “Would you like to know who I am and why I’m interested in you?”
Without fail, that produces a conversation that wakes everyone up and makes them want to know more, plus tell you about their identity, not what they do. Without fail, people want to connect on a tribal level instead of getting your rambling answer about brand, features, and functions.
This is why people keep journals. It is writing to yourself, often daily, to check in with who you are and what is going on around you and with the people important to you. Is it selfish and egotistical? Only if you are writing about yourself in a way that is not truthful or destructive. Journaling helps us get to the core of who we are and how that serves others. Finding the real you requires reflection and some excellent questions to dig deep into your talents, characteristics, traits, beliefs, and feelings.
While it feels internal and all about you, the reason you do this is so you can show up in the world with the best possible connections to others.
At the end of the day and the end of your life, the only thing anyone is measuring is this: Who do you love and who loves you?
This is why people write biographies and memoirs. They’ve already lived it and don’t need to do all of that work to write it for themselves. They write for others to see themselves in a story and feel heard and seen. People write books to help us with our constantly shifting identity questions which will never stop for as long as we live.
What people want from you is the person who has lived through joys, tragedy, and challenges, and somehow came through it better, wiser, or stronger.
What Are the Changes That Shift Our Identity?
What are some of the changes that are small, large, and unavoidable?
Let’s start with unavoidable. You will die. This is the biggest change and your body will go through it once and without any prior knowledge of how to do it.
Next comes large. Bruce Feiler wrote Life Is In The Transitions and calls these lifequakes. That is when a pileup of two, three, or four disruptors rises to the level of disorienting and destabilizing us. The damage they do can be devastating and their aftershocks can last for years. Most of us, Bruce documents, go through three to five of these massive reorientations in our lives.
You or someone you love is going through one of these lifequakes now.
Lifequakes can be voluntary or involuntary and navigating the transition is always voluntary and full of choices. Changing jobs, moving to a new town, giving birth to a human, and starting a business are voluntary lifequakes. The death of your most beloved family member, the disaster of a tornado, getting fired from a job you loved for a long time, and discovering your child has special needs are examples of involuntary lifequakes.
Next comes smaller changes and Feiler identified 52 types of disruptors, including getting married, divorce, a major change in finances, a victim of crime, extended personal travel, changing careers, losing weight, rehabilitation and therapy after major surgery, hiring more people for your business, graduation from college, retirement, and chronic illness.
Expect about 36 of these disruptors in your life. Now we come to the core question, how do changes cause you to form new identities?
Are you the same person your whole life? The answer is essentially, yes. What changes is the context. What changes are the identities you take on. What changes are the functions, roles, and structures of those identities.
For example, you go from the identity of a wife to a widow when your spouse dies. You go from just you to daddy or mother when you have a baby. You go from CEO to unemployed when your business closes or you leave the business for other reasons. But again, these are merely new facets of our identities, laid over the steadfast foundation of our 'self.'
You are the same person. The gifts and talents you were born with are still there. The family you came from and the life experiences growing up don’t change. The trials, tribulations, and triumphs you experience are all hardwired into your experience paths in your brain. Time keeps moving and you age with every minute and day that you live. It’s still you, just in a body that may be wiser but not as strong or as flexible as you were at 18.
How about “a better version of you”? It’s still you, with layers of identity, just like layers of clothing in the winter for protection, style, or both.
So, what is identity?
Identity could be seen as a label, a designation we adopt or are assigned due to experiences, roles, or society's conventions.
Perhaps our focus should lie less on the external attributes and more on the internal constancy. Each one of us has a narrative marked by challenges, triumphs, joy, and sorrow. While these experiences shape our identities, they do not alter our basic character.
Who are you? You need to answer that question early and often. Every time you have a disruptor your identity shifts. Lifequakes change your identity so much that you may say something like I’m a different person or I’m a better person. Those are adjectives. That’s not the core of who you are.
That horrible feeling of being stuck happens when we try to say what we do or what is our purpose and value to others without a complete, current, and honest answer to “Who are you now? Who have you always been?”
The dichotomy between one's persistent self and fluctuating identities adds richness to our lives, offering depth and nuance to our interactions. It’s our unchanged, enduring self combined with our array of shifting identities that others connect with, finding solace in our shared human experiences. By accepting the mutable identities layered over a constant self, we can approach each other with a deeper understanding, acknowledging the rich tapestry woven by both the colossal and minuscule events of life.
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