Identity Development
Imagine you're in a work meeting, class, or joining a new organization and you get pressured into an ice breaker activity. What do you say when someone asks you to introduce yourself? How do you decide what’s important to share? What traits or facts make up your personality? If you’re like me, your mind goes blank and you have no idea what to say. In other contexts, you may believe you know yourself better than anyone else and yet simultaneously struggle to describe that personality to others. Continue reading to explore how our personalities are developed and how we can utilize introspection to dissolve the barriers holding us back.
Our personality development begins when we are just babies and changes drastically throughout our lives. As modeled in Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development, we transition through phases that give us the opportunity to grow and evolve or become stunted. I am a firm believer that we are a product of our environments: the family we grow up in, our neighborhood, school system, etc. From a young age, we feel a desire for inclusion towards our family-of-origin. Sadly, this need is not always met; some parents are unable to give their children the guidance and support they need because of their own traumas.
Parents may unconsciously attempt to live vicariously through their children, even adult children, and as a result, not support their child’s dreams. Patterns of being unable to listen, encourage, and give a child the space to grow and develop is hurtful and can be detrimental to gaining confidence in one’s own beliefs and path. “The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of its parents. (Carl Jung)” In the teenage years, we continue this identity journey, leaning on our friends more for guidance than our parents because of evolution.
As an adolescent, we are more vulnerable to experiencing peer pressure because we want to fit in and feel included on a cellular level! If we solely relied on our parents for support, we would never become independent and leave the nest. Similarly, it is challenging to develop your autonomy when there are so many expectations placed on us since birth; from parents, society, school, etc. Young adulthood is the phase for us to realize which learned behaviors and thought processes aren’t serving us anymore and which ones we want to cultivate and nurture.
We have all said at one point or another how we couldn’t wait to be an adult and get away from our parents rules and expectations, and yet if you are over the age of 20, I imagine you have regretted those words more than once! Being a responsible adult is challenging and a lot of people feel inadequately prepared for the compounding responsibilities involved. In forming deep connections with friends, working with young adult clients, and my own introspection, I have learned about the common struggles we share and the barriers we face in becoming financially and mentally independent and will expand upon them below.
Impostor Syndrome
Impostor Syndrome is something that plagues most young adults yet is rarely discussed in day-to-day conversations with friends and peers. Feeling like an impostor in our chosen field stems from what I call the social media façade. We compare our reality to others’ highlight reels and as a result, deem our own experience lack-luster. Success is challenging and anyone that you consider successful will tell you that it is not a linear slope upwards. Success is not the absence of failure; it is persisting towards your goal despite the failures you will encounter. “In our culture, we always want to be ahead of where we are. (David Steele, Conscious Dating)”
Having ambition and drive are necessary for success, however, there is a fine line between striving to do more and feeling like what you have accomplished is insignificant. Perfectionism and procrastination are a viscous cycle. Similarly, there are two types of stress: eustress and distress. The former can act as a motivating factor that drives you to meet your goals. The latter acts as a deterrent, fueled by our insecurities and can create a wall that prevents you from even trying! If we are constantly focused on not feeling good enough or that we aren’t doing enough, the drive and inspiration to succeed becomes buried.
Fear of Failure (or Success)
In some cases, fear can act as a motivator- pushing us to find a way out of a situation we don’t want to be in. This mechanism is rooted in our survival response of fighting or fleeing in the presence of danger. This response exists to keep us safe! Like distress though, if we are not in actual danger, this fear persists, unable to complete the cycle and release. This causes us to feel stuck in the present and fear the uncertainty of moving from this spot.
Similarly, a lot of young adults are afraid of failing! This could be influenced by parental expectations, gender roles, societal standards, or a combination of all three. Often though, it is difficult to even describe what we are afraid of. Likewise, success is scary too because we don’t know specifically what that looks like or see it as unattainable. Take a minute and reflect on what failing means to you. Similarly, what does success mean to you? It can be difficult to work through these fears if you don’t even know what the definitions mean to you.
Final Thoughts
Our personalities are constantly evolving and are influenced by our choices in adulthood. I encourage you to take some time to reflect on the major contributing factors in your environment as a child (family-of-origin, religious groups, school system, etc.) Talk to your friends, co-workers, or family members about their own identity development to deepen this journey for yourself! If you realize that you want more guidance in unlearning learned behaviors and thought processes that aren’t serving you anymore, find a therapist to support you along the way! I love watching friends and clients alike gain confidence in their values and beliefs instead of trying to fit the mold their parents (and culture) created for them.I hope this blog normalized what you’re experiencing and gives you the courage to persist towards your goals, despite your fears.
“The only way to get what you really want, is to know what you really want. And the only way to know what you really want, is to know yourself. And the only way to know yourself, is to be yourself. And the only way to be yourself is to listen to your heart.”