Crafting Your Idea of You
Every time we are daunted by a problem in life, there’s a central question we implicitly ask ourselves: can I handle this? And the answer to that question depends on who we think we are; our self-concept is the all-purpose tool we bring to every situation. Yet most of us tend to be hard on ourselves, attacking our self-concept, with consequences throughout our lives. So today I’d like to talk about self-concept, how to expand it purposefully, and how I let one conversation affect mine.
To understand self-concept, it helps to recognize that everything you think about yourself is a story that you made up or accepted from someone else. Your whole idea of “self” is a conglomeration of stories and images, piled on each other, intertwined, like a huge ball of yarn. Many of these stories do you a good service, but the stories where you feel like you’re not enough can be crippling.
So the work is to unwind the ball of yarn, story by story, image by image, holding each one up to the light for reexamination. Sometimes the light itself dissolves a story into thin air. Other times you might have to wrestle with a story to rewrite it, one word or phrase at a time, over months or years.
As an example, I carry a story about who I am as a teacher. I’ve been teaching all my life, so I’ve taught over a thousand students, and most of the time I succeed, but there have also been times I’ve failed. My story is that I have to try hard but can never be sure of success with any given student. The center of this story is “trying hard.” I think of this story as realistic and motivational, and I’ve never questioned it, but honestly, it’s also stressful. There’s an element of, “What if I mess up?” It’s probably the reason I used to have nightmares every August about missing my classes by accident or forgetting all my students’ names. It’s a story I feel in my chest and arms before class, a keyed-up, slightly anxious feeling, like I’m going into a test every time.
Last summer, I shifted this story because of an unexpected conversation with someone I hadn’t seen in thirty years, the father of a student I taught in the 1990s. This gentleman pulled me aside at a lawn party, faced me squarely, locked his eyes on mine, and proceeded to speak emphatically and at length. I felt like I was being held in a forcefield and just listened. He talked about how important I had been to his daughter when she was in high school, what a rare gift my teaching and mentoring had been, how I opened new worlds to her that often became the subject of conversation at dinner, how I pushed her, encouraged her and believed in her, and how he can trace everything about who she is today back to my influence on her teen years. What a gift this man offered me that afternoon. In the moment, I could only bow my head in gratitude.
Afterwards, it was up to me how to integrate his story into my concept of myself. My usual habit would be to diminish his gift in some way, by thinking, “he was being kind,” or “it was just one student,” or “it was just luck that I happened to click with her.” Then I would file it away in the “success” file, but that file would still be a goal for me, leaving me with my old basic story of “trying hard.” I realized I had an opportunity to do things differently. Time to tinker with my self-concept.
I allowed myself a thought experiment, shifting from “that’s something I happened to be able to do one time” to “that’s who I am.” I let that thought sink in, and felt like I’d stepped into a different body, lighter and expansive. My heart felt stronger. I hesitated to stay there for long, lest I become complacent and forget to be the person who tries hard. Yet it has become a place I can enter for a dose of sunshine.
Is that really who I am? No, it’s just another story, but I’m glad to have added it to my self-concept, because I think it will serve me well. Ultimately, all our thoughts are stories, partial truths, interpretations of ink blots. Our minds need these partial truths, these mental maps, to navigate the world, and the ones we choose to adopt as our self-concept are particularly powerful shapers of our lives.
Small group work at the Wise Humanity Retreat in Morocco, Spring 2023
Last spring, forty people reexamined their concept of self and helped each other rewrite their stories at an epic four-day Wise Humanity retreat on the theme “Great Enough.” (The response was so positive that we’re now offering it as an independent workshop and are about to publish a book about it.) The group developed a running joke about how to respond to a compliment. Instead of deflecting with self-deprecation, we adopted a new standard response: “Thank you, it’s true!” We said it loud and proud and laughed. In everyday life, we can say at least the first part aloud, if the second part only silently to ourselves.
Crafting a self-concept is a lifelong process, and it’s worth working on consciously and directly, because ultimately our sense of self is the ground we stand on, it’s how we arrive to every situation. For those of us who tend to be hard on ourselves, engaging with the perspective of a supportive friend (or a small group at Wise Humanity) can be a great help. At the very least, next time someone gives you a heartfelt compliment, don’t deflect or file it right away. Inwardly, say “Thank you, it’s true!” and let yourself feel your own radiant heart.
