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“None of us are defined by our worst actions that we have done.” — Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy
“Nor are we defined by the worst things that have happened to us.” —KW
I have been privileged to work with individuals who have demonstrated extreme self-confidence and belief in being able to achieve great accomplishments in their personal and professional lives. Some have accessed confidence and belief to create massive financial success while others have become elite in their professional sport, ability to entertain, or experiences of political power. They have engaged in visualization skills and affirmation to fulfill their goals. They were masterful in their achievements.
However, there is a remarkable number of those who have achieved world-renowned feats who admittedly state they have less belief in who they are separate from what they do. Some have even disclosed that they would be lost separate from what they do. In other words, their professional craft and achievements define who they are.
How bout you? Do you know who you are separate from what you do? Do your achievements define you? If so, then you have created a hamster wheel affect for your life. You will need to do more to keep from being less.
There will never be a time when enough achievements will create fulfillment. You will never experience a sense of completion or enduring satisfaction because you will need to keep running for more and more. It’s the nature of the hamster wheel driven by your identification that who you are is what you do. Or, you will only know to identify yourself by what you did in the past or what you are planning to do tomorrow.
It is not uncommon for those who find their identity in what they do, to feel a great sense of emptiness and despair immediately after performing a great feat. I have heard several share that their deepest darkness happens when they are off stage and alone after performing. Some have even shared that it has been a huge trigger to act out with their drug of choice while others have indicated vulnerability to suicidal ideation.
Identifying who you are other than the results of what you do or will do requires that you have a sense of presence in the here and now with an emphasis upon “being”. This requires that you be able to sit with what is and make meaningfulness from it.
It suggests that you are able to separate what you do from who you are. It can be scary. You learn to focus on meaningfulness by simply being you separate from what you do.
When you are all about the results of what you do then the idea of coming home to yourself and sitting with your feelings, thoughts and presence is frustrating and likely confusing.
Yet, it is necessary to detach from the results of what you do. Even, when success bombards your world and seems to flow freely. Eventually, you get to a point of realization that you cannot control the end result. It is beyond you!
But, the alternative to the detachment of results is to embrace uncertainty and all of its unwanted feelings and thoughts. Not a very attractive alternative. However, when you practice this free fall in life experience you encounter unparalleled freedom. You learn that uncertainty and freedom go together. Eventually, you discover that unwanted feelings subside or become transformed into the magic of gratitude and other feelings of peace. You experience the unconditional confidence of going down with all the feelings of discomfort knowing that you will rise again with the awareness of freedom to be who you are.
This is no small feat. When this is practiced both praise and criticism received for the things you do is recognized as an imposter to the real you.
Here are considerations to anchor your identity to who you are rather than what you do.
1. Know the values of your heart and don’t betray them. Be more concerned about being true to those values and less concerned about successful results.
2. Affirm that you are an unrepeatable miracle of the universe. For many this sound like too much fluff. Many would want their result to speak for who they are. The paradox is that when you know who you are before an endeavor, the results do not determine their essence. You will not let an outcome define you. You will embrace all of yourself- the good, the bad, and the ugly. You will understand that life is a tapestry that weaves the sweet with bitterness and triumph with tragedy. No victory will add to this reality and no defeat will take away from it. This reality must be etched in stone that exists within your heart.
3. Create a list of affirmations about your being, not what you are good at doing. Religiously bathe yourself in them every day as mental hygiene in the same way you take care of your physical hygiene. This is often overlooked. Endless practice prevents most people from realizing their destiny. To know who you are you must feed yourself with the clarity that separates being from doing. Give yourself permission to be a mistake-making person, the only kind that lives on this earth. Be the one who takes something meaningful from every mistake into your future. This is an endless practice.
4. You won’t understand your sense of self from a distance. You will need to be willing to embrace going deep within to know your being. For most this is scary. Socrates stated that “the unexamined life is not worth living”. You must be willing to do the uncomfortable. it requires intentionality. Sitting with challenging emotions and understanding their message to you about who you are requires persistence and tenacity which many prefer to avoid.
5. You will need to be courageous as you embrace your being. You will need to make a decision to be true to yourself when everyone around you is pressuring you to be different. You must be brave, anchoring your identity in your being. You will be tempted to lose yourself in what you do. There will be failure but you must bring yourself back to center. As Maya Angelou wrote in her poem Still I Rise, “You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.”
When you learn to believe in who you are as a stand alone belief, what you do or how much you do will pale in comparison to the uncovered brilliance that you are an unrepeatable miracle of the universe. This truth about being is a stand-alone truth that will stand the test of the ages.