Since my run yesterday, I started to develop some annoying pain in my knee.
It could be gone in a day, or it will stick around and it means I can wave goodbye to the Hyrox I’m doing next week and the half marathon I’m doing next month.
This rang many alarm bells in my head and I started experiencing some anger toward my body and sadness about the idea of having to deal with an injury while I have things to do soon.
Instead of pushing away the anger and sadness, I asked myself: “why am I feeling these emotions?”
What my bachelor's thesis said about identity
After some journaling, I found the answer to my confusing emotions in the back of my mind where my thesis is kept (who would have thought that its content would be handy for my daily life).
I wrote my thesis about athletic identity and its effect on an athlete’s likelihood to play through pain and injuries. Athletic identity is the degree to which someone identifies themselves as an athlete. For example, someone who says “I’m a runner” scores higher on athletic identity than someone who says “I’m an accountant who runs”.
Generally, a top athlete’s identity tends to be built largely by them being an athlete. The bigger part it plays in your life and your future, the bigger the role it plays in your identity.
Research shows that the higher someone scores on athletic identity, the more likely someone is to play through pain and injuries. You would think that those valuing their athleticism the most would take the best care of their bodies.
However, the mechanism functions differently.
Not playing due to injury means losing a part of our identity. Identity (who we are) is largely built from what we do. Who are we when we don’t do what we do?
Not playing feels like giving up on who you are when you largely define yourself as an athlete. And I think I’ve defined myself too much as an athlete the past couple of months.
“If I would exercise less,
it means I have to be less myself.”
Here are some integral parts of my identity when it comes to exercise:
- I rise to the challenge, no matter how physically difficult.
- I work out 6 times a week.
- I don’t give up.
Let’s say I would give in to this injury. It would mean I would have to cancel the challenges I have set for the next weeks, I would have to work out less, and I would have to give up the goals I have set for the next weeks. In other words, I would have to give up the identity that is well built into my thought patterns.
I actually just journaled down the words: “If I would exercise less, it means I have to be less myself”. The idea of giving up a large part of my identity enrages and saddens me because it means I can’t do what defines me. And that idea is saddening, enraging, and confusing.
The psychological mechanism behind identity doesn’t just conform itself to athletes only:
- How would a workaholic feel when experiencing symptoms of burnout?
- How would a loving stay-at-home mom feel about the idea of their children moving out?
- How would an eager student feel about the idea of leaving school in the next weeks?
All of these depend on how much they define themselves with their role. The workaholic would be lost in life if they largely define themselves by their job. The mom would feel sad about the idea of their children moving out if they base their identity on their daily life of taking care of their children and household. The eager student would feel terrified of leaving school when that has been their place of growth and safety.
The general question here is:
Who are we when we don't do what we do?
The answer is that we should stop defining ourselves only by what we do and start defining ourselves by who we are. Your occupation does not define the person you are. You are defined by what you value in combination with what you do.
When the things we do slip away from us, there’s still who we are. The core of our values remains while the activities can differ. It’s why retired athletes can become successful entrepreneurs: their progress-loving core remains even when they have a total change of direction in life.
When looking at the three examples I gave earlier: what if the role they define themselves by disappears for them?
- The workaholic can still develop and develop themselves while taking a step back.
- The stay-at-home mom can still be a loving person when her children move out.
- The student can still be an eager learner outside of school.
When your “whole life” slips away from you, there’s still you. You might need to do some hard work in redefining and reinventing yourself (” What do I do now?”), but you still exist outside of your role.
Let me apply this lesson to my current situation.
Giving up on the Hyrox and half marathon I planned, feels like giving up on myself. However, these events are not the definition of me. I value learning and adventure in my life. These values are manifested by signing myself up for physically difficult events. When these events don’t happen for me, there are still thousands of ways I can express my core values.
I can learn how to play musical instruments, learn to speak a foreign language or learn how to become a pro at public speaking (which are all things I plan to do soon). There are so many things for me to still learn and make progress in, so why stop my definition of myself at the things I’m doing currently.
I'm still myself when my current plans disappear.
The Hyrox and half marathon I have planned now are the main adventures I have set my eyes on currently. However, even when those slip away from me, there are many other adventures to explore. Instead of defining my adventurous core by these two events, why not accept that these are not the adventures I’m doing right now?
There’s so much to learn and to explore, I’m still myself when my current plans disappear.
My name is Ward and I’m finding out how we can improve happily ever after. And that means I define myself by my values, not by my activities and plans.