Our Identity navigates us through many of life’s largest challenges. Identifying with activities, groups, interests and passions brings us closer to others and to a meaningful life. As much as it helps us, it may also hold us back. We may foreclose our identity to the wishes of others, and to labels we put on ourselves because the act of questioning who we are creates overwhelming angst. Maya Shankar, a cognitive psychologist and once a Senior Advisor in the Obama White house , spoke on the Knowledge Project Podcast about how identity can drastically improve our lives, especially when we focus on the why of our identity. 

Shankar’s childhood and early adolescence revolved around the Violin. This ambition defined who she was, but, a hand injury destroyed her dream and she began to grieve over the loss of her identity. Feeling lost, she found herself interested in cognitive psychology. She graduated from Yale with a BA, and then received a PhD from Oxford University. 

On the Knowledge Project Podcast with Shane Parrish, Shankar discusses the concept of ‘Identity Foreclosure’, referring to the process of committing to an identity before exploring other options, often taking place during our formative years where we are most susceptible and dependent on authority figures like parents and teachers. This submission isn’t stable, as life’s inevitable hardships will challenge our individual status-quo and force us to change. Rather than forming an identity on what we are made to do, Shankar recommends listeners ask themselves: 

“What is it that sits at the root of my passions in life? Can I find my meaning and worth and place my identity in that, such that when life throws me a… massive curve ball, I can mourn that loss sure, but I don’t feel completely disoriented because there is so much of me that persists, and that I can find… in other mediums. ”

By thinking of identity in this way, we can ‘strip away the superficial aspects’, as Shankar describes, and focus on deeper aspects of our identity that can be found in many pursuits. This frees us from fixating on what we’re doing, which is vulnerable to agents outside of our control. We can focus on why we’re doing something, and connect with grander aspects of living that can be found in many pursuits and groups. 

The episode also delves into how we as a society should approach disagreements using identity, the effects our self-view has on our actions and other strategies to aide in formulating our identity. It is an inspiring listen, and reminds us that our identity is not fixed, but rather subject to change, external and internal. 

You can listen here

Image Credit: Noah Buscher on Unsplash.