Before I get into the stories, I want to make sure we’re talking about the same thing when I say “identity.” I don’t mean personality. I don’t mean reputation. I mean the internal answer to the question: Who am I? The labels you carry around for yourself that you don’t really think about anymore. Things like: I’m an engineer. I’m a runner. I’m a Star Wars person. I’m a Mac guy.
Those labels aren’t just descriptions. Research in identity psychology tells us they function more like a behavioral operating system. Once something is part of your identity, your brain starts using it as a standard — checking your behavior against it, generating discomfort when you fall short of it, pulling you toward actions that confirm it.
That’s why identity is so powerful. And that’s why it matters — a lot — what you let in.
Your identity doesn’t ask permission
Here’s the thing: identity doesn’t announce itself. You take up a new hobby, or your parents take you to a ball game, or someone gives you a cat mug as a gift and now everyone thinks you’re into cats — so now you think you’re into cats.
It just quietly starts shaping what you do, what you avoid, and what you feel guilty about. And if what you let in came from someone else’s franchise — a brand, a fandom, an ideology — then part of that shaping is happening according to their agenda, not yours.
Two stories from my own life.
The kite guy
For about 10 to 15 years, I was an avid kite guy. I flew kites, built kites, competed with kites. My vacations revolved around kite festivals — two or three a year. I spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on kites. It’s basically what I did.
I flew every chance I could get, even when conditions didn’t support it. Oh, there’s a couple puffs of wind. Let’s go.
Then kids came along. Tiny little kids who weren’t capable of kiting. I no longer had the time or money for festivals. School schedules killed off-season travel.
And so the kites started collecting dust in the basement.
Every time I walked past them, I felt guilty. I really need to get back to it. I should be out flying kites. One of these days.
For years.
Kites were part of my identity, and I wasn’t flying the kites. So my brain concluded I wasn’t being myself.
The Tolkien nerd
For many years I was deep into the works of J.R.R. Tolkien — not just Lord of the Rings, but all of it. The Silmarillion. Unfinished Tales. The History of Middle Earth. A friend and I had a friendly rivalry for who knew more obscure minutia spanning thousands of years of lore. I would read and reread constantly just to keep up my Tolkien-nerd cred.
And then one day I realized I knew more about the sociopolitical situation in Beleriand following the Dagor Aglareb than I knew about the events leading up to World War I.
One of those actually affects the world I’m living in.
These experiences taught me to question when community and fan identities were actually serving me. Sometimes I’d outgrown them. Sometimes they were consuming an outsized portion of my resources. Identities can distract or cage you over time.
The same mechanism can work for you
At this point you might be thinking: okay, so identities are traps. I should just not have any.
That’s not where I’m going.
The same mechanism that made me haul kites to festivals I didn’t have time for and memorize the political geography of a fictional continent — that same mechanism can work for you instead of against you. The difference isn’t the mechanism. The difference is whether you chose it, or it just happened.
Two more stories.
The RPM Challenge
There’s an event called the RPM Challenge — Record Production Month. The challenge is to record an album of original music in February. I started in 2007 and have done it every year since. But in recent years it started feeling pointless, like something I was doing just to do it.
As I hit February for what would be my 20th RPM Challenge, I genuinely questioned whether I should keep going. Is this something I should still carry?
Ultimately I made a conscious decision to retain this identity. It was one of my few creative outlets that didn’t also have a profit motive attached. So for my 20th, I broke out 20 instruments that had been gathering dust and recorded a live improvised concert with anecdotes on February 28th.
The music sucked. But I celebrated the joy the process gave me. When it was done, it felt right.
MIDZY
This next example runs very close to the line of “control through franchise” — and I want to be honest about that.
I got into K-Pop via a group called ITZY, and I got very into K-Pop. I intentionally made it part of my identity. I’m a card-carrying fourth generation MIDZY — in the top 0.5% of ITZY YouTube viewers worldwide. I may have legitimately skewed the metrics enough that they put a billboard in my town, a mile from my house, to advertise their last tour.
This means I spend money on albums, light sticks, concerts. It started cluttering up my house. Why do I allow this?
Because ITZY always seems to have the song I need at the time I need it.
When I was navigating social VR while still terribly socially awkward, Wannabe reminded me to be myself. When I was a new project manager leading customer meetings for the first time, ITZY told me I was Born to Be and Untouchable. When I was drowning in too many commitments, they told me to focus on my level up and get tunnel vision.
A well-chosen identity feeds your core values. ITZY’s music speaks to mine: being brave in expressing yourself, strong work ethic, self-confidence earned through accomplishment, relentless focus on being the best at what you do.
And here’s the role model piece: I’m a musician. I can get on stage and perform. ITZY gets up there and performs for thousands of people, with their own anxieties and insecurities. If they can do that, I can do the much smaller thing I’m trying to do.
So here’s where I land
Identity is going to happen to you whether you participate in it or not. The question isn’t whether you have identities — you do, and you always will. The question is which ones you chose, which ones just accumulated, and whether the ones you’re carrying are pulling you toward who you want to become or holding you in place.
The kites were guilt I was paying on an identity I’d outgrown. The Tolkien deep-dives were attention I was spending on someone else’s world instead of my own. The RPM Challenge is a creative commitment I’ve chosen to keep because it feeds something real in me. And MIDZY earns its place because it models exactly the kind of courage and discipline I’m trying to build in my own work.
Same mechanism. Very different results.
Your identity is running right now. The only question is whether you’re the one programming it.
This is Part 1 of a two-part series on identity. Part 2 — Reinventing Yourself Without Losing Yourself — drops April 19.