The Power of Unshakeable identity
"Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are" - Brene Brown
I had such a special experience yesterday. About 6 months ago, I was asked if I would like to speak at a local networking event. I was told that typically there would be about 20-30 people attend. Yesterday I delivered my session to over 70+ powerhouse women of all ages and the energy in the room was next level. It will be one of those moments in my life that will stay with me forever.
Today, I wanted to summarise the talk I gave into this blog post in celebration of International Women’s Day and all of the incredible women I have the pleasure to know and the ones I don’t know yet.
Here we go…
You are so much more than the roles you play.
When you introduce yourself to someone, what do you say?
I guarantee that you generally share some (if not all) the following:
Your name
Your job title or what you do
Where you work
How long you have worked there
Your marital status
NONE of these things are about who you are.
Let me explain.
Over the past 12 years of my life, I have had to deal with losing my identity on four occasions. It has taken me a long time to learn a very powerful lesson.
I first experienced a loss of identity when I decided I needed to change my career at the age of forty. I had worked in the field of personal and leadership development for twenty years and I had started to fall out of love with it. I was working in a high-profile role in a large organisation. I was travelling each week and living out of a suitcase. I had no time for friends or family, and I felt completely burnt out. I decided the time was right for a change and so I resigned. I didn’t know what I wanted to do but I resigned anyway.
Having been single for forever, within 2 months of walking away from my career, I met Rob. Our romance was a whirlwind and within 14 months of meeting I had changed my name and relocated to a much more remote part of the UK where I did not know anyone. Rob and I agreed I should take a career break and try to work out what the next chapter of my life would be. It turns out the answer did not come easily, and I found myself lacking purpose and lonely.
Eventually I saw a role advertised for a leadership specialist at a local company. I decided to go back to what I knew, and I got the role and life settled down again.
Rob and I decided to start a family. We knew that at the age of 41, it could be more challenging however I was excited at the thought that we could become parents, and I had convinced myself that my next adventure was to become a mum. After a short while, we were diagnosed with unexplained infertility and after four long years of trying everything we could without success we had to let go of that dream.
Life moved on and I re-energised my passion for leadership development. I was given a project to create a Leadership Academy from nothing. It was a dream project that I felt so inspired by and for four years I poured my heart and soul into creating a space for leaders to learn and thrive. One day, with no warning, the project was put on hold. I suddenly felt like the rug had been pulled from beneath me again and I felt lost.
When I started to look back over all of these moments, I started to realise something. I kept feeling like my identity was being shaken. When I started to dig further, I realised that in each of these scenarios I had tied my identity to something outside of me.
I had defined myself by my job title and career and when I left my job, that part of my identity disappeared.
I had defined myself by being ‘single’ and when I got married my identity shifted too.
I had decided I was going to be a parent and when that was not possible, I felt lost.
I had poured all of me into a ‘heart and soul’ project and when that disappeared, I didn’t know what was left.
A truth hit me hard.
Identity is an INSIDE JOB.
We tie our identities into so many external things. We define ourselves by our jobs, where we work, how long we have worked somewhere, our marital status. All of these things can change.
Your identity is something so much more profound than these things that can change in the blink of any eye.
You have the power to make your identity unshakeable. Here are my tips on how to do this:
Use your inner compass – know your values.
You are driven by a set of values. They are your inner compass that help you navigate your way through life. When you experience peak moments in your life that bring you joy and fulfilment, it is usually because your values are aligned. When you find yourself in more challenging times, it is often because one or more of your personal values is being compromised.
No-one chooses your values for you, they are yours. They are shaped by your experiences and what you hold dear. They are an incredible way to check in with yourself and know if you are on the right path or not.
Most importantly they are a part of your identity.
Tap into your superpowers
You have superpowers. They are the gifts that you have that are not common for other people. When your friends, family and people close to you describe you, they will often talk in terms of your superpowers. Sometimes they come so naturally to you that you don’t even recognise them as gifts. They might even be the strengths that other people have used against you to make you feel small.
Your superpowers make you the unique, special, wonderful human that you are and remain with you regardless of any external role you fulfil.
Align with your purpose
I am passionate about the topic of purpose because I struggled to find mine for so many years. I spent years searching online and reading books trying to discover the one secret to ‘finding your purpose’. As has been the case in most of my life, it took my own personal experiences to reflect back to me what ‘purpose’ truly is.
We tend to believe that finding our purpose is about finding the perfect role that we can play that enables us to feel we have achieved something. As with identity, purpose is much more about what we believe inside us than what happens in the external. I have come to understand that purpose is not a thing, it is a way of being.
My unique model of purpose I use with my coaching clients is comprised of:
Showing up in a truly authentic way – being more YOU. You are fabulous so why not share that with the world?
Making a difference – You are as unique as your fingerprint. You are here to leave a legacy that no-one else can. We all want different things which means there is space for us all to leave our own imprint in our own unique way no matter how big or how small.
Self-actualisation – part of your life journey is to become the most fully expressed version of you. This means never losing the desire to learn and grow. My hope is that you realise that you will never be the finished article because there will always be another layer of fabulousness to uncover.
Having fun – We sometimes forget that life is meant to be fun. For me, this is one of the simple biggest factors in living in alignment with your purpose. Ask yourself the question “am I having fun?”. If not, it is time to make an adjustment.
When you build your identity around the factors above, you are making your identity unshakeable. External factors can no longer impact the identity you hold. No loss of job, no change of marital status, no change to work scope can change who you fundamentally are and how you show up in this world.
Reframing imposter syndrome
The topic of ‘imposter syndrome’ crops up very frequently in the coaching conversations I have with men and women. Many of us have experienced this sensation of feeling like we are going to get found out. The definition of imposter syndrome is “a feeling of inadequacy that exists despite evidence of success”.
Take that in for a moment.
When we are experiencing and demonstrating levels of success, we start to feel inadequate.
We have a thermostat for how much happiness, joy, success we can handle. In his book The Big Leap, Gay Hendriks describes this as the upper limit problem. It is almost like we are conditioned for a certain amount of success that we can handle. When we move beyond our comfort zones and start to achieve more success than is usual, we freak out. Imposter syndrome rears its head and before long we are filled with self-doubt and our inner critic is running wild.
In those moments your inner critic is actually trying to keep you safe. It wants to protect you and keep you in the safety of your comfort zone. Anything beyond that is unknown and scary. So, it tells you the story that you are safer where you are. It tells you that you are not good enough.
Imposter syndrome is nothing more than a narrative that you can chose or change.
Imposter syndrome only happens when you are moving beyond your comfort zone and experiencing new levels of growth, happiness and success.
What about choosing a different story? Next time you feel the sense of impending doom and know that imposter syndrome is about to creep in, try telling yourself this story instead…
“This is a natural feeling that I am experiencing because I am in a period of transformation and growth. I’ve got this and I am growing into the next, more powerful version of me”
Same feeling, different story.
To bring this blog post to a close…
Your identity is powerful. It is too important to tie it into all the external factors that can leave you feeling like you don’t know who you are anymore when they change or disappear.
Having an unshakeable identity gives you the freedom to be unapologetically all of who you truly are and who you are still becoming.
Being you is the best gift you can give yourself and the world.
I wish you a wonderful International Women’s Day.
Ps I started this blog post by asking how you would introduce yourself. This is how I introduced myself at the event yesterday. This is my unshakeable identity.
