how are you talking about yourself today?
On self-narratives and how to prevent them from becoming self-limiting beliefs
I never get people who write in their dating bios that they are looking for people who ‘don’t take life seriously’.
Because I take my life very seriously. And I like to take my life seriously
in the i-do-new-year-resolutions type of way,
and the i-plan-ahead-of-time type of way,
and especially the i-have-an-idea-of-what-i-want-to-be-and-how-to-get-there type of way.
I find some degree of comfort in taking stock of what’s happened in my life thus far and reflecting on what I want to achieve next to craft a narrative for myself to own and aspire towards.
Part of it is because it’s handy to have in your back pocket a response to ‘where do you see yourself in five years?’
But the other part of it is using these self-narratives as a means to guide and influence my actions, behaviours, the situations I choose to put myself in, and the everyday choices I make.
I first came across this concept from James Clear’s Atomic Habits, where he talks about using identity (rather than outcomes) to ground your habits – say ‘a strong independent woman’, ‘a caring mentor’, or a ‘discerning strategist’ etc.
Especially when I first started out in my career, articulating these (aspirational) identities for myself was extremely helpful because it gave me something to work towards. Thinking about that identity kept me focused, and guided me to cultivate the behaviours that accelerated my progress towards my desired self.
But recently, I realised that in steering you towards a specific direction, this self-narrative could also breed a one track mind.
To borrow a quote from Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas in Generic City, "The stronger [the] identity, the more it imprisons, the more it resists expansion, interpretation, renewal, contradiction."
"The stronger [the] identity, the more it imprisons, the more it resists expansion, interpretation, renewal, contradiction."
This newfound cognisance made me think: what should I do to prevent the self-narratives that I craft to empower me from becoming self-limiting beliefs?
Here’s what my musings led me to:
Ask yourself regularly “is that still true?”
My answer is to rearticulate regularly.
Being in my mid 20s, I want to have a plan for the future. I want to articulate a vision for myself and actively move towards that and know that I’m taking the right steps towards that.
At the same time, I realise that my mid 20s are when change happens most. It’s when I’m being put into new situations, meeting new people, and finding out things about myself that I never knew I never knew.
And when change is always afoot, self-narratives need to be fluid. It isn’t a static script that you are supposed to regurgitate ad infinitum.
Just a few weeks ago, I was rattling off that same old script of mine.
“Hey, I’m Agalia and I’m a strategist working in advertising…”
Sure, it rolls off the tongue — pretty much autopilot.
But internally, my brain was just like ‘wait, really?’
I mean, it’s kinda right, but kinda wrong at the same time1.
That’s exactly the thing about these self-narratives. They aren’t wrong, they are only wrong now.
So I’ve begun asking myself this regularly: does my self-narrative still feel right after accounting for all the new information that I’ve learnt about myself over time?
My past few weeks have thus seen me lifting my foot off the accelerator, and huddling over my computer to immerse in the process of writing and rewriting; to figure out the new words that can fully articulate2 who I think I am and who I want to be in order to – eventually – reorient myself.
Embrace the process of unfolding
Going through that process of rewriting the script that I’ve been so used to saying, I have to admit that it isn’t the easiest thing in the world.
My mind drew blanks, I questioned if I still had some sliver of self-awareness, and it was one big existential crisis wondering “what am i?!” if I’m not just a strategist.
I’ve however found some respite in this piece by one of my favourite writers on the internet, Henrik Karlsson, where he talks about the concept of ‘unfolding’:
I paid attention to things I liked to do, and found ways to do more of that. I made it easy for interesting people to find me, and then I hung out with them. We did projects together.
I kept iterating—paying attention to the context, removing things that frustrated me, and expanding things that made me feel alive.
Eventually, I looked up and noticed that my life was nothing like I imagined it would be. But it fit me.
— Everything that turned out well in my life followed the same design process
Perhaps, I don’t have to have it all figured out yet.
Perhaps, reorientation doesn’t only come after I’ve crafted a new narrative.
Life isn’t linear, things don’t happen like they tell it in stories and sometimes, it’s about working backwards.
So perhaps, all I have to do now is to simply pay attention to the context, and follow my feelings of joy and wonder and curiosity to lead me into a life that fits.
Updates to follow soon.
‘strategist’ doesn’t feel like an all-encompassing term for all the work that I do anymore - story for another day.
this is a whole other essay on whether we can actually find terms that are all-encompassing for something as complex as one’s identity