How to change
A process of shattering and smoothing. (Image by Brigitte D from Pixabay)
A fellow math teacher presented an intriguing brain-teaser involving coins. I think of myself as someone who enjoys problem-solving, so I gave it a whirl.
Solving the problem took several hours of work over the course of a couple of weeks, including some time spent talking it through with my husband. There was some eccentric behavior on my part, like staring off into space with a frown and sitting on a park bench manipulating a lap full of coins. I found myself in some tricky blind alleys that required challenging mental three-point turns to get out of them. I thought I had the solution, but then discovered that I didn’t; I thought my husband had figured it out, but he hadn’t; then I went for a walk and finally got there.
Why would I spend all this time trying to solve a silly puzzle? Because I believe I’m someone who can. I simply stuck with it until this inner truth matched the outer one, even when the evidence suggested it was hopeless.
There are lots of uncomfortable or downright painful things that we do or try because it’s part of our identity, from weight-lifting to kombucha to childbirth. We humans like to challenge ourselves. My brother recently ran 50K ultramarathon; the course was poorly marked, so he ended up running a few extra miles. He didn’t mind — what’s a few more miles if you’re running more than thirty in the first place?
Our identities can lead us to commit acts both heroic and foolish. If you think of yourself as a person who would step into in harm’s way to save a life, it stands to reason that you’re more likely to take that risk if the opportunity arises (and to take the CPR courses that would help you succeed). If you think of yourself as a smoker, you’ll smoke.
When there is something you want to change in your life, you can deliberately shift your identity to accommodate it. For example, I met a woman who longed to be a writer — but she did not spend any time writing. Because she saw herself as “not a writer,” the act of sitting down and writing was incompatible with her identity. Therefore, she didn’t do it. In order for her to begin making the time to write, she had to choose a new identity for herself as a writer — and start writing.
Why is this so hard? Sometimes, changing our deeply-held beliefs about who we are and who we can be feels like a betrayal of who we were. It makes us feel like we were wrong to see the world the way we used to. We question our past choices and rue the wasted time. It can be very painful to confront the shame and regret that surfaces. To get through it, we can consciously weigh the benefits of changing against the benefits of staying the same. Usually, changing wins, because growth is inevitable.
Growth itself can be seen as a process of seeking, shifting, discarding, merging, and expanding our identities. It’s a continuous process, a playground where you’re always welcome. Choose who you want to be, and then make space in your life to become that person — and for those around you to change, too.