Defining one's self 👓

"I am not what happened to me. I am who I choose to become."
– Carl Jung

🧠 The power of the mind

Everyone knows that the mind is powerful. I didn’t fully realize how powerful it is until I have seen the Mind Field episode on The Power of Suggestion. Since then, I have been careful about the stories I tell myself.

In my journey to growth, I adopted different mindsets to tackle different aspects of my life. There are multiple concepts I carry with me, and three of them are below.

Identity-based habits 👤

In Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about creating an identity to build lasting habits. It was affirming when I learned about it.

Growing up, I did not read a lot of books. When I wanted to read at least 20 books in a year, I didn’t create a list of books to check. I pictured the person I wanted to become from it & start acting like it was normal for me. When I had a hard time focusing to read, I was careful not to say “I’m just not a bookworm” (which I knew). To expand my knowledge, I had to act like a bookworm. Since then, reading became easier for me.

I don't look in the mirror and tell myself what I am. I don't take a deep breath and manifest what I will achieve. However, what I do isn't so different—I create an identity and start acting it out.

Fake confidence 📣

I was the stereotypical shy kid on the corner. When people ask how I gained confidence, I always get puzzled. I don't know how.

There is a new Netflix series "Live to Lead" where Jacinda Ardern (former NZ PM) said something I highly resonate with:

"I actually don't think there was some big moment where I suddenly found confidence. I found responsibility instead. And that, actually, has been a bigger motivation for me, more than anything else, that sense of duty."

My journey to gaining confidence can be encapsulated as "fake confidence until it becomes real." Amy Cuddy's TED Talk on Your body language may shape who you are is something I had to learn the hard way. By the time I discovered that talk, I realized I was no longer faking my confidence. If I had found that video sooner, my journey would have been easier.

Creative genius ✏️

There is another TED Talk from Elizabeth Gilbert, Your elusive creative genius, which is a classic.

The gist is to see yourself as a vessel for ideas. Ideas don’t come from you, they pass through you from a source outside yourself. If your creative work is terrible, you don't have to blame yourself. If your work is great, you don’t exalt yourself.

Great ideas stem from consistency. You continue to show up, and do the work.

📒 The Alter Ego Effect

Just this week, I finished Todd Herman's The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life. What fascinated me is how it's related to the topics I mentioned above.

The alter ego 👤

5 years ago, I would find the idea of creating an alter ego very inauthentic. I am a firm believer in always staying genuine. It turns out, the suggestion from the book is not so different from building identity-based habits.

The basic premise of the book is that your best self is already within you. Creating an alter ego will make it easier to access your best self.

Like identity-based habits, you create an identity separate from yourself. Then, you let that identity take over... like how Spiderman would become Peter Parker, or Peter Parker would become Spiderman. This is called an alter ego, and you can create different alter-egos for different aspects of your life.

Unlocking skills 📣

The book emphasized that having an alter-ego, or a different persona, is not about being fake or playing pretend.

It isn't about pretending to be a doctor when you don't have the skills for it. It’s unlocking the skill or personality already inside of you, and bringing it to the time and place you need.

This is why “fake confidence until it becomes real” would usually work. Most people are already confident in specific circumstances (i.e. alone, with family, or with a specific group of friends). It is now about bringing that confidence into the field of play.

The other self ✏️

Lastly, using an alter-ego creates an identity separate from another. Like the idea of a creative genius, you won't fall into the trap of self-loathing or self-glorifying. If you didn't do well, it can mean the identity you used wasn’t the right fit.

You can even create an alter-ego for your destructive thoughts & emotions. Unlike Moon Knight, you get to be conscious of this alter-ego, and you can deal with it healthier. All these make up the entire you.

Ultimately, knowing you’re not tied to one identity would make learning a new skill, or performing a specific work, easier. You can be the best person at any time you choose. And when the best version of yourself finally takes over, you may not need an alter-ego anymore.

"I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until finally I became that person. Or he became me."
—Cary Grant

🔖 My bookmarks

Few things I discovered & rediscovered this month:

• One mantra I really like is Amazon's Always Day One.
• You can't just cancel 76,500 hours of meetings – why async work experiments fail.
• Since the start of the year, I have been using 1SE & Punkt every single day. Takes less than a minute to document my every day.
• I started the year reminding myself why solitude is something I don't have to be guilty of, with Susan Cain's No Solitude, No Revelation:

"When he was a child, the Seer of Lublin... used to go off into the woods by himself. When his father, worried, asked him why, he said ‘I go there to find God.’ His father said to him, ‘But my son, don’t you know that God is the same everywhere?’ ‘God is’ said the boy, ‘but I’m not.’"