Most men aren’t really stuck because they lack ability. They’re stuck because they’re treating their current identity like it’s a final draft instead of a first draft.
I was the guy who just knew that I was crushing it at work because I was reliable and extremely competent. I was the steady one. But despite that, I kept telling myself “I’m not the kind of guy who really puts himself out there that much.”
So instead of taking all my real-world knowledge and publishing it somewhere on the side, I didn’t pitch myself to anybody.I didn’t get in the right rooms and I didn’t ask anybody for money, that’s for sure.
It wasn’t because I couldn’t; it was because I knew people were going to judge me if I tried to.
Instead I just kind of picked that safe identity of the quiet humble guy who wasn’t flashy.
And it worked great because that story protected the hell out of me…but it also became a cage for me too.
The fancy word for it is identity ossification. All it is is just what happens when you start making the repetitive things in your life into rules.
I would do something a certain way for a long enough period of time for it to start feeling like a choice that I could build explanations around.
I could tell myself I’m just wired this way, or I’m not built for that, or that’s not really for me.
They weren’t really observations so much as they were boundaries that I was starting to set for myself. Because boundary lines are good, right?
They are until they also become your own prison.
This is the pattern that I used to run to get relief.
- I would feel a little bit of pressure to start growing and maybe try something that the 20-year-old version of me that was hidden away got excited about.
- Then I would start thinking big and growing out the whole plans, which of course helped me remember all the ways that I could fail or get exposed as an imposter and just be embarrassed.
- And I still wanted to do it despite the fear so then I would come up with this fixed identity to kind of help make myself feel better.
- And so then I avoided the thing that I was thinking about trying.
- And afterwards I justified it and it became the proof that I was right after all about who I was.
- My ceiling became even more concrete.
I ran that cycle on a loop until it became true.
At some point I started to catch myself saying, “That’s just who I am,” and I started to run a little test first.
- Is this a description of my past or a decision about my future?
- What would I do different for 30 days if I treated this identity as just a first draft?
- What’s the smallest visible action I could take that would contradict the story without screwing up my life?
I wasn’t trying to become a new person overnight.
I was just trying to give a little bit of proof to my nervous system that my identity wasn’t set in stone.
Hopefully you’re not like me where I used to read something like this and I’d get a little uncomfortable and say, “Yeah that’s me.”
Then I’d just rationalize it with a new identity.
If that’s not you, I’ll let you know that a Narrative Audit is a tool I use to help us map a story you’re using, identify the places it shows up, and the specific moves you keep calling “just how I am.”
And we don’t do it with motivation. We use pattern evidence.
P.S. When I used to say “this is just who I am” I was usually protecting something else.
Usually responsibility.