Aligning Your Identity With What Is In Your Control.

January 11, 2022

Your habits, choices, and actions ultimately make up who you are, your identity. It is important as your identity continues to evolve, you understand what’s within its foundation. It is easy to get caught up in the hype and build a unstable foundation on external outcomes. However, almost all external outcomes are completely out of our control and vanity. How can we ensure our identity is aligned with things that are within in our control? Then our identity can be solely up to us.

“It’s important, finding your worth in something that can’t be taken away by others or not within your results.”

Kollin Moore, 4x All American & 3x Big Ten Champion Wrestler for Ohio State explained on The Chasing Edges Podcast with Brian Peters how he leaned into his faith when removing his identity from sport and his results.

We can absolutely love our sport and our craft, especially as we dedicate our time, energy, and life to. However, it is also possible to hold our identity in things that are within our control at the same time. For example, our effort, our attitude, actions and the kind of person we choose to be are all under our control. Challenging ourselves to lean into the most important practice in Stoic Philosophy, differentiating what we can change and what we can’t (Daily Stoic January 1st) as a place to start. Things that we can change and that are under our control can be our foundation of our identity. This will give us more strength when we hit hardships in life.

What is your identity?

What is within in your control?

How do those align?

Personally, I have grown a lot in this area over the past two years and have a lot more work to do in understanding my identity. As well as, where I can grow and who I want to be moving forward. I lean towards James Clear’s work with Atomic Habits and writing to organize my thoughts when specifically working on identity development. James Clear’s quote from the book simplifies the process of building your identity.

“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.”

James Clear’s quote from the book simplifies the process of building your identity. It is actually one of my six principles I lean on in life currently. Using it to help me make decisions, pause, and reflect. I use it as a tool and reminder when I think through what my actions have been, as well as who I want to be moving forward. Part 2 of Identity related to what I discovered this in the Daily Stoic January 1st entry, and it really resonated with me after listening to Kollin Moore speak on the Chasing Edges Podcast about aligning with what is within our control which was discussed previously.

The recovery community practices something called the Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

The Stoic Philosophy provides a simple framework to understanding what is within our control and what is not.

Control - Actions, thoughts, and beliefs. Almost all comes back to those big three.

How we perceive a situation, how optimistic we are, how grateful we are, taking action to invest in our health, helping others, and how we choose to respond to hardships all come back to what we believe, what we think, and how we choose to act.

It is another great reminder to continually identify what is within your control and what is not. When assessing your identity but also life in general. Since COVID hit there has been a lot more personal reflection I believe for most of us. Asking ourselves many introspective questions about life.

In writing about this it has helped me understand there are two parts to our identity. Part 1 is our identity is active. It is developing as we live because we are what we do from a standpoint of our actions help make up our identity (James Clear). Where part 2 is more stoic and on the side of Kollin Moore, having our identity within something that is in our control. It comes back to actions of part 1. This is compared to having our identity in external results such as winning, being awarded by others, likes on social media, or gaining approval from others through our title.

Is my identity a Collegiate Strength & Conditioning Coach? No. It is a title that provides me the platform to express what brings me fulfillment and potential parts of my identity. Connecting, coaching, educating, health & wellness, and deeply impacting others are all things I value, as well as the kind of person I want to be.

It is all food for thought. Brings on more questions More importantly take the time to write out answers to them.

My best friend encouraged me to not only post the article I wrote, but to share more of my personal thoughts. As I continue to evolve as a writer here is action.

Best Day of the Year, Until Tomorrow.

Ferate

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