Soon after we moved to the farm, we had a visitor who said to us:
“I’m not a bird guy, but your geese are beautiful.”
After saying thank you, my thoughts went to asking myself…
What’s a bird guy?
Fast forward a few months: my husband Robin won’t stop talking about all the different chickens and ducks he wants to raise.
As it turned out, my husband was a bird guy.
He just didn’t know it.
Our identities change and surprise us
Robin didn’t know he was a bird guy because he never had the opportunity to be around a lot of animals before.
When he was growing up, he never imagined he would be enamored by such feathered friends.
But suddenly, he was in a place where he could fall in love with them.
That’s when this new identity took root.
We are all constantly evolving and learning new things about ourselves.
So it’s normal for our identities to develop over time.
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Adding new identities and letting them go
We can continue to accumulate identities as we evolve.
Maybe you start as the quiet kid, then you act in a few plays and now you’re a theater kid.
Or your career identity is an accountant and then you become a parent and add on a new layer.
You could be a quiet accountant parent, who does theater occasionally.
But it’s not just about adding new identities.
It’s helpful to allow ourselves to shed identities that no longer fit, too!
I recently heard the term identity retirement, via Lacy Boggs, who heard it from a YouTuber who was shifting topics.
It’s a great way to look at letting go of our identities.
Still, some of our identities can be helpful for life.
I’ll always be a martial artist, even if I don’t practice in a classroom setting anymore.
Others are just for a season.
I loved the years that I offered coaching, and I know that it’s okay for me to hang up my identity as a coach.
Some identities don’t fit anymore and it can be liberating to let them go. To retire them.
As author
Jennifer Louden reminds us in creating new identities, it’s not too late to change things up.
Not letting our identities rule us
No matter what identities you claim right now, they don’t need to control or stifle you.
I used to hold on so tightly to my identity as an “award-winning entrepreneur” and all of my press mentions. But I’ve learned that beyond stroking my ego, it doesn’t do much for me.
When I remind myself that starting a business and running it for nearly 15 years is just something I’m doing, it frees me up to be more me.
A clear separation from my business entity helps me embrace other aspects of my life.
Like being a mother, gardener, shepherd, and writer. Married to a loving bird guy.
Surprising new identities
This past week we had some baby chickens hatch in an incubator in our living room.
Robin lit up like a kid with so much wonder in his eyes when he saw them hatch.
It reminds me that we can all be surprised by the identities we develop.
I never thought I’d be a business leader growing up. I still don’t focus on that as a primary identity, but it is something that happens in the course of my days.
Now if we could all look at the new aspects of ourselves that develop over time with the same wonder that newly hatched chicks inspire, we’d be set.
We might even hold onto our identities softly, and allow them to fly away.
Do you have any surprising identities? Any identities that are ready to be retired?
