I have been having what I am calling an “identity crisis” for the past few weeks.
I feel like this is “normal” or should be “normal” given all the work I have done on myself the past year. Everyone always talks about the fun things that come along with personal growth but there is another side that is less spoken about that I have discovered. The part of you that you have become so comfortable with can be challenging to completely part ways with.
This has been my recent struggle – how do I fully commit to this new me and wrap up the chapter of old me?
When I started coaching, 8 months ago, part of my “intake” included The VIA Institute of Character survey. This is a short survey that provides you with your 24 character strengths and puts them in order based on strength.
Back in August, these were my top 5:
1. Leadership
2. Kindness
3. Humor
4. Perspective
5. Social Intelligence
I retook the survey (almost 8 months later) and here were my new results…
1. Humor
2. Appreciation in Beauty & Excellence
3. Leadership
4. Creativity
5. Love of Learning
My initial thoughts after seeing this were – oh sweet Humor moved up, that means I am getting funnier….but then I realized Leadership has gone down so does that mean I have become a worse leader?? Clearly, my internal judge took over and began to dictate what was good and bad about these switches.
After getting my inner judge voice to calm down, I started to reflect on who I was when I first took this survey. I was a super EAGER “perfect employee” who was trying so hard to be in a management role. I was an extreme people pleaser and I was super unhappy with a wide variety of things in my life.
“New me” – and yes I put this in quotes because I know it is super cringy to say but it holds some truth… but “new me” now shows up more authentically and that has allowed my humor to come through more often. I noticed this, particularly through the ice breakers I have been asking during our team meetings. I used to ask basic questions like, “what was your first concert?” and now I am asking, “If you could be any famous basketball, who’s basketball would you want to be?” or the question of last week’s meeting, “are there more wheels or doors in the world?” which is a question I got from TikTok and I feel no shame that I did. It led to a great silly debate to kick off our team meeting which is the purpose of these!
Appreciation in Beauty & Excellence, Creativity, and Love of Learning were all new strengths added to my top 5. After giving it some more thought, I am not shocked as I originally was when I first saw the results. For example, 8 months ago, I was afraid to tell my manager I was overwhelmed with work and said yes to everything because I thought that is what you had to do to be considered a “good leader”. Now I lead by saying no and sharing my stories creatively through my blog and LinkedIn in hopes that you can all learn from some of the challenges that I have faced.
The one that did shock me the most was, Appreciation in Beauty & Excellence. I have been struggling with the worst seasonal depression I have ever experienced this past fall/winter. So much of my energy has been spent on being angry and upset about how horrible the darkness, weather, and outdoors are making me feel. The sun has the power to make me depressed – that is a pretty strong relationship if you ask me. Given the strength of this relationship, I have found myself appreciating my time in nature much more.
When I was in California a few weeks ago, I had the amazing experience of watching both the sunrise and sunset from the same beach on the same day and it was an unbelievable experience. Despite the seasons controlling my emotions, I have gained a new sense of appreciation for them.
Now, after reflecting on these new strengths my “identity crisis” has become a bit clearer but has not vanished. I am still not 100% comfortable with this new identity and have a lot of work to do on fully accepting her but, from the way things have been going, I think I am going to enjoy what’s next for her!
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