Defining Your Identity

You cannot take all the reasons away for doing something and expect yourself to be motivated. We need a reason to do something. There must be a desire, a true longing, for the final outcome. You usually don’t wander yourself into losing weight or getting a job – it begins with a few choices backed by a desire to achieve.

How do we create something out of nothing? It begins by harnessing the inner desires inside of you. One of the great tests of a man is who is he when his busyness is taken away from him. Unfortunately, many of us rely on what we do to let it define who we are. But the answer on the other side is not a giddy self-help solution to embrace your identity and be more of you. Rather, I think the answer is a mixture of both identity and action.

A clear practice I’ve seen over and over now is the development of one’s core values. It’s repeated for good reasons, too, because it works. If you search through a list of 150+ values, you can circle ones that resonate with who you are and trim the list down to 3-5 in total. These core values become filters and guiding ships that lead you in life. You cannot choose every value, but you can focus intently on a few. They reinforce the nature of who you are and who you are becoming. But your identity is not a list of values either, because you are not limited by that. Of course, you can become more than 3-5 things. But when you see yourself with clear eyes, knowing and understanding who you are, you can apply your life to action. Otherwise, you are simply choosing things to do when you are not working busily on something that provides an identity for you.

You have your identity. You are your own person, not your job title that you received from someone else. With that person, you use your core values to apply value to action, and you live by the action. When you are busy, you are using these values, and when the busyness fades, you get to do what you value, and you do not lose any part of yourself. Go become who you were meant to be.