Our Identity as Our Trajectory

Your identity is not merely just your personality and who you are right now, but also encompasses the qualities, beliefs, and self image that you assign to yourself. The kind of person that you tell yourself to be, conscious or unconscious, all influence the trajectory of your life.

Would you feel comfortable getting on a flight from New York to Shanghai but the pilot hadn’t calculated the trajectory? Imagine, it’s a 15 hour flight (which is agony in itself) and when you land instead of being in the land of panda bears and ancient history, you are in the land down under, Australia that is. It is the epitome of preposterous to start a journey with no clear direction. You are sure to arrive somewhere, but with no clear direction, where might be in the middle of nowhere.

Aligning Purpose and Identity

It is the epitome of preposterous to start a journey with no clear direction. You are sure to arrive somewhere, but with no clear direction, might be in the middle of nowhere.

If you want to fulfill your purpose and do the things that make you light up inside, you won’t arrive there unless you align the identity you ascribe to yourself.

Your identity is not merely just your personality and who you are right now, but also encompasses the qualities, beliefs, and self image that you assign to yourself. The kind of person that you tell yourself to be, conscious or unconscious, all influence the trajectory of your life.

If you’re someone who is truly convinced that there is more to life, your identity and your subsequent self image and beliefs have to match. If they don’t, it’ll be no different than flying out to Shanghai but ending up in Sydney.

Forming a Strong Positive Identity

Too many times, we want to see a change in our lives but we only work away at the branches and not the root. If you want to experience a lasting change in in your life and the world around you, this action require two things- a deep burning desire to see a certain outcome come to pass and a commitment to the follow the trajectories that get you there.

If not, you will probably do what you and many of us have done before: We start a new project or get a new idea, we want to see it fulfilled so maybe we tackled it head on at first. But without that burning desire or a change in our processes or identity, when life gets busy, we hit our first bump in the road, or someone tells us we can’t do it, our doubt and frustration creeps in and suddenly we abandon the project or idea all together.

By forming a strong positive identity, it is the thing that gives your life direction. Even if you get off track, your identity serves to re-calibrate back to your desired destination.

At one point or another, all of us have experienced the effects of an identity crisis. In essence, it’s the equivalent of losing our navigation signal. These crises tend to happen when we find ourselves in new environments or stages of life we’ve never been in before or when we realize we’ve been stuck in the same negative situation or environment for way too long. We question ourselves and contemplate whether this is really the path that we want to be on.

But without that burning desire or a change in our processes or identity, when life gets busy, we hit our first bump in the road or someone tells us we can’t do it, our doubt and frustration creeps in and suddenly we abandon the project or idea all together.

Maybe reading my words have stirred a mini identity crisis in yourself, it only serves to confirms the importance of our identity to our trajectory.

For example, I desire to create a world where people aren't afraid to dream, but instead own up to them and do what needs to be done for those dreams to become a reality. I created The Counterweights as an avenue to bring people together to do just that. But if I see myself as someone who is too young, or inexperienced, or someone who doesn’t rise to challenges, or someone who gives up easily, I can tell you this movement I’m creating won’t last long. I’ll lose the will and motivation to continue long before I reach my desired outcome.

And so, I have a list of “I am” statements that I tell myself everyday, that kindle my fire inside, and remind me to do and believe things that align with these statements.

Some of these statements include:

I am a child of God

I am a person who creates and builds new things

I am someone who brings people together

I am someone who inspires and speaks truth in other’s lives

Confirming Your Identity

And so, when I face different decisions or opportunities in life, if they don’t align with my identity statements, then I don’t do them. I only do the things that confirm my identity and thus make me more alive. Because if I do anything that that contradicts my identity, I feel less like me and more like a zombie. So it is crucial for you to create statements that are not only positive but also relate back to your purpose of what makes you feel alive and what makes you want to BE alive.

Typically these statements will hit a little deeper than a statement like I am someone who

makes a lot of money. Money is not something that will kindle our fire inside nor without an action in mind, does it help anyone else. There are plenty of people who make a lot of money but are empty inside. Money is not a goal but a tool, and so I believe a more appropriate and more fulfilling statement would be something along the lines of I am someone who uses my resources wisely to bring joy to others.

Or my financial “I am” statement is I am a faithful and wise steward of the resources that have been given to me. It is a statement that reminds me that the resources that I have aren’t meant to solely serve myself but are to be used to fulfill purposes beyond myself.

These statements dictate what kind of person I am in my life. I’m not saying I do them all perfectly all the time but the point is every action I do, I want it to count in favor of my identity. If my identity determines my trajectory, and if I want my trajectory to be one that leads me to encourage and bring others together to do the extraordinary, then I better do everything in my power to solidify an identity that leads to that trajectory. '

By living daily according to your “I am” statements, You are you now, and you are way more capable now than you’ve ever been before.

And for you, it should be no different, the person you are in this life dictates where you’ll end up in life. What you attribute as your identity has a funny way of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think you can’t do it, you won’t. But it’s when you change our identity and experience the subsequent changes that result from it, that you’ll are surprised to find out that indeed you can do it. But the key is, there’s no use in waiting to be your ideal version of yourself. None of us are perfect. But by living daily according to your “I am” statements, You are you now, and you are way more capable now than you’ve ever been before. '

Practical Takeaways

• Think about what kind of person you want to be, think of it in the affirmative and present tense using "I am" statements versus I want or I will statements such as I am someone who brings people together versus I will be someone who brings people together. "I am" statements make you look for opportunities to confirm your identity now instead of sometime in the future.

• Write each of your “I am” statements down on a sticky note, put it in a place you often look, and say your statements aloud and to yourself multiple times a day preferably with some passion. Remember this identity is important as it will affect all aspects of your life and will help ensure where you want to go in life.

• For this purpose, your identity isn’t about who you were in the past but it’s about creating an identity that grows your fire inside and makes you realize that this is what it means to be alive.