We naturally build identities around our roles, accomplishments, and traits.

When we become overly attached to an identity, information that contradicts it can feel threatening.

Letting go of self-conceptions (both positive and negative) frees us to grow and actualize ourselves.

My client Jacob had already built and sold a successful company. So, when he launched his second business, he was confident. But nearly a year later, the new product wasn’t gaining traction.

“I thought I knew how to do this,” he lamented to me in our session.

The product failure was challenging something far deeper in Jacob: his understanding of who he was. He had come to see himself as a success—a designer with a Midas touch. Now the evidence in front of him didn’t fit that story.

So I asked him a different question: “Well, who are you if you’re not the guy who always gets it right?”

After some reflection, he slowly began to offer some other identities: father, husband, Latin American.

Eventually, he arrived at something even simpler: “Underneath it all,” he said, “I’m just a human being.”

When an Identity Becomes a Trap

All of us have identities. We may think of ourselves as smart, successful, or competent. We also identify with our professions, relationships, communities, and social roles.

These identities are useful, helping us understand our place in the world. The problem arises when we stop seeing an identity as one aspect of ourselves—a role we play—and start treating it as something we must continually prove or hold on to.

Imagine that being “the smart........

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