[YOU ARE NOT Your F#@king Khakis!] What’s your Identity? | Infinite Man - Dating

Mike Diretto | Infinite Man - Dating

I want to talk to you a little bit about identity. (Read to the bottom for an interactive exercise!)

What do I mean by identity? I mean the way you think of yourself - the ways you define yourself. Usually we talk about this using "I AM" statements like "I am a doctor."

It's very important for you to have a diverse set of identities, not just one.

To illustrate this point, here are some of my identities:

I'm a dating and relationship coach - that's the identity from which I'm writing to you right now.

I'm somebody's son.

I'm somebody's brother.

I'm somebody's husband.

I'm a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner.

I'm a drummer.

And the list goes on... These are just some of the different things that I associate with myself.

If you want to become bulletproof to life's challenges one of the best methods is to work on developing many identities for yourself. That way, if any part of your personality or life starts to suffer, you can make up for it with the other parts of your identity.

For example, what if I injure myself on the mat and I can't do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for a while? Where's my passion go? Where's my creativity go? Where's my hobby now? This could be a huge disappointment.

Well... Fortunately I've got music to help me with that for the duration of my injury (assuming I haven't injured my hands and feet). I could sit down and play the drums, right? I still have a way to be expressive and passionate through another aspect of my identity.

A lot of people tie their identity to their career or job. But if you lose your job, what would you do in response to that? Hopefully you have other pieces of your identity that can help fill the void - something that can bolster you and get you through the hard times until you have a new job.

What other identities would you rely on in that situation?

Having many identities is kind of like having an internal support system. The more identities we have, the more pathways of support we can have if any one of those other identities starts to fail us...

Having many identities also means that we are NOT SO ATTACHED TO ONE!

It's like having an internal abundance mentality. When we have many identities we do not have to be overly defensive or too invested in one or the other. Yes, identity is tied to the ego and if we combine ego + identity that can lead to a lot of disappointment.

But if we have many identities the ego doesn't feel the need to attach so strongly to one particular identity and we're actually able to keep the ego IN CHECK more easily.**

In today's video I talk more about the importance of having healthy identities as well as share a couple stories about times in my life when my identity took a major hit

BONUS!

Here's a little exercise you can do on this topic...

1. Write a list of all the ways you can identify yourself with "I AM" statements. For example "I am a student, I am a son, I am a gamer, mathematician, spiritual seeker, etc."

2. Spend about 15 minutes on this and then review your list to see which I AM sentences resonate with you the most. These will be what you are the most attached to.

3. Think about if you have a healthy or unhealthy attachment to those identities. If you were to lose on of these important identities would the others be enough to make up for it?