Hi! I’m Katie, and I’m a cultural and social psychologist—but you can think of me as your BFF with a PhD. I live in the desert of Texas alongside the cacti, roadrunners, and horned lizards. If you’re looking to understand your inner landscape and the whirlwind of the world around you, I hope you find something of value here. Make sure to subscribe—and you won’t miss a beat! Thank you so much for being here.
Processing and thinking about identity—who you are and what lights you up inside—should be one of the most exciting parts of being human.
Identity is truly a creative exercise at its core, and we are all creative human beings.
Building our identity (and perhaps even reassessing and building identity for the first time later in life) is one of the best opportunities we have to tap into the creative side of ourselves.
Yet, identifying who you truly are—what lights you up inside, your values, your life goals, and your beliefs?
It isn’t an easy process.
And, it can be especially challenging if you are only for the first time in your life beginning to deeply consider who you are and what you’re all about.
This process can be a bit disorienting and confusing if you’re deep into adulthood and diving into your identity for the first time.
If that’s you, it’s important to adopt practices that can help you stay centered and grounded.
It can also be helpful to have someone in your life who can serve as a guide to gently nudge you along the path.
If you’ve allowed your life to become a byproduct of someone else’s needs, wants, mission, or message, what really truly matters to you may first appear fuzzy.
YOUR IDENTITY IS CREATIVE WORK
Identity is such a fun concept, because it is creative work.
I find a lot of inspiration in this quote by Abraham Joshua Heschel that says this:
“Above all, remember that the meaning of life is to live it as if it were a work of art.
Your life and who you are is a work of art!
Let that be inspiration to you!
You may be an Enneagram 4-type reading this, and I am 100% speaking your love language.
Perhaps you love art and painting or drawing.
You love all of the traditional modalities of creativity.
If that’s you, you’re likely already in.
Or perhaps you may be thinking, "Gosh. I don't have a creative bone in my body. How do I even begin?"
If that second scenario is you, perhaps let me be the first to tell you that research has shown that we are all creative beings.
In fact, we truly thrive as humans when creativity is baked into our lives.
I love this definition of creativity by Brittanica:
“the ability to make or otherwise bring into existence something new, whether a new solution to a problem, a new method or device, or a new artistic object or form.”1
This isn’t limited to painting or drawing or those more traditional stereotypes we hold in our head as “creative”.
Creativity can show up in our lives in many forms as we “bring into existence something new”, even in ourselves.
Brené Brown (2010) writes in her book, The Gifts of Imperfection2, that her research has revealed 3 things about creativity:
“There’s no such thing as creative people and non-creative people. There are only people who use their creativity and those who don’t.” She goes on to say that unused creativity doesn’t just go away. It continues to live within us and often festers and boils over in negative ways.
“The only unique contribution that we will ever make in this world will be born out of our creativity.” The way I see it, one of the most unique contributions we can make to the world is to show up as the people we want to be, not the people we feel like we have to be or who we’ve been conditioned to be. When we can show up as ourselves in our day-to-day, true creativity is born.
“If we want to make meaning, we need to make art. Cook, write, draw, doodle, paint, scrapbook, take pictures, collage, knit, rebuild an engine, sculpt, dance, decorate, act, sing—it doesn’t matter. As long as we’re creating, we’re cultivating meaning.” How much more meaning could we cultivate if we channeled that creativity directly into ourselves?
So, the research is clear.
If we want to live happy, whole lives as humans, we have to listen to and nurture our creativity.
If you give yourself over to viewing yourself and your life through this creative lens, each and every moment of your day-to-day instantly transforms into a fun and invigorating process.
Because you are building that work of art.
You get to go now and create it.
Does it get anymore exciting than that?
The rest of the Abraham Joshua Heschel quote says this:
“You are not a machine. When you're young, start working on this great work of art called your existence.”
Remember that you are creating your existence.
You are a creator of your life and only you can shape it and mold it (and yourself) into something brilliant and beautiful.
You are not meant to merely exist as a cog in a machine, living life exactly as the person next to you is living it.
This is your opportunity to grab the reigns of your own life and build something beautiful.
So, the question remains.
What do you want to create?
Who do you want to be?
OUR PAST IS PART OF WHO WE ARE
Viola Davis says this:
“This is who I am. This is where I am from. This is my mess. This is what it means to belong to myself.”
It’s important to note that our identities should not be exact constructions of a perfect ideal we have of ourselves.
This quote is helpful to keep in our back pockets as we engage in exploration of identity.
With this quote, we are reminded that we bring a past with us.
Our past is a part of who we are.
When we are doing the creative work of building our identities today, it’s not helpful to take an eraser to parts of our past.
So, if your past isn’t perfect?
Great.
And, what if it’s messy?
That’s the point.
Instead of taking an eraser to our imperfect pasts or the messy parts of ourselves and our stories, we get to pick it all up and bring it with us.
It’s a part of who we are—all of it—the good, the bad, and the ugly.
IDENTITY DEFINED
So, what is identity?
Identity can include a wide range of characteristics, features, or facts about yourself.
Some examples of what can be a part of your identity include:
the social roles you play in your life or the social groups to which you belong
physical descriptors, say you have blonde or red hair
your family of origin, ancestry, race, heritage, or country of your origin
your gender and sexuality
your hobbies, favorite pastimes, interests, and goals
your personality type and habits
your core values and principles
existential belief systems, including religion
your purpose, talents, career or job role
Identity is all of these things (and much more).
It’s the spectrum of these pieces of ourselves that come together and make us who we truly are.
It is also what makes us unique.
This is your real self.
THE IDEAL SELF V. THE REAL SELF
It’s helpful to have an understanding of two different types of selves that we hold, the ideal self and the real self.
According to Carl Rogers, the father of humanistic psychology, each person holds a real self and an ideal self (1959).3
And, it’s important to not confuse our real selves with our ideal selves.
The real self is who you actually are.
Your real self is what is in your deepest core.
All of the things that come together and make you who you truly are is your real self.
It includes these things we listed above.
It’s what makes you truly you deep down inside.
On the other hand, our ideal self has nuance.
Our ideal self could be a healthy thing.
It could be something that we are striving for in the future.
For example, I want to have a more healthy relationship with my phone.
That is not my current, real self.
My ideal self is to daily hold boundaries around my screen usage, but perhaps I’m not quite there yet.
It’s important to be aware of those pieces of our selves that feel like real parts of who we want to be or who we are at our core but may be things we are aspiring towards.
As a self-actualization process, it can be healthy to consider who you want to be and who you want to become, while also standing grounded in where you actually are today.
Expecting ourselves to be perfect can get us into trouble.
Where the ideal self takes a turn and can become problematic is when social influences get in the way of living from our real self.
If everyone else is telling us who we should be, the shoulds can take over.
We want to be clear and focusing on our real self.
Those aspects of yourself that make you who you really are.
Not what you feel like you need to be for someone else to be okay with you or approve or accept you.
Projecting an identity onto ourselves that's been given to us by someone else can be wildly unhealthy.
We want to be cognizant and careful about the selves.
Are the two selves congruent?
Is my real self in line with my ideal self?
Because if your ideal self is what other people are asking you to be, what others are demanding of you, and that's not who you truly are, you will experience cognitive dissonance.
HOW TO TAP INTO YOUR TRUE IDENTITY
As you begin to work out your real self versus your ideal self, here is a practical tool for tapping into your true identity.
*The following is a hands-on activity created exclusively for paid members to help you tap into your true identity. If you’d like to gain access to hands-on activities and exercises that accompany psychologie articles, please consider being a paid subscriber. Thank you!