I’ve always been a curious guy (A bit all over the place, to be really honest). I’d pick up hobbies, learn a decent amount, drop them, and jump onto the next one. Over 22 years, I’d drawn characters, run a small radio station, debated, created videos, edited music, managed social media and of course, there was a bit of writing too.
Then I joined the ‘Real World’
In 2018, I joined a small ad agency and for the next 18+ months, I wrote. I learned about writing, copywriting, and marketing. I lived, breathed, dreamt, and debated about writing and marketing. Cut to 2 years later and I ended up depressed, fat, and most importantly, I wasn’t drawing, learning, or creating anything new. All because I called myself a writer. That’s how I introduced myself and how I thought of myself.
Labels, the real world, and limitations
Ambiguity courts distrust and the real world likes labels. So do you. Labels offer some form of stability and control over who you are. And often, our answers to the question, ‘What do you do?’ is a noun, a label.
I am a marketer. A student. A data analyst.
Normally, this shouldn’t cause problems.
However, thanks to social media, the personal branding movement, and good ol’ society, the actual problem comes when you form your identity around a noun-based label.
How your label becomes a self-limiting prophecy
Let’s say you do marketing. Because you’re a ‘marketer’, you naturally learn more about marketing. You get jobs related to marketing.
You now direct your curiosity towards marketing blogs, ideas and some time later, you start to identify as a marketer.
Here comes the break
As you learn more, the Dunning Kruger Effect makes sure that you start becoming more unsure of yourself. Then come the rejections, the criticisms and a ton of honestly terrible feedback.
Each word of feedback becomes an attack on your label. Your identity.
BAM.
You start thinking maybe you don’t really know anything. You aren’t a marketer. You think you’ve lost your superpower.
Your identity.
Hello, depression.
Beware the nouns in your head
The nouns you use to label yourself have a great chance of becoming a part of your identity and limiting your potential. You think that you’re a carpenter and then you become only a carpenter.
Forcing your identity around a label limits everything you could be. And in the case of creative people, it starts limiting what you could create.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. There is a way out of this.
You are what you do
What got me out of the loop is to switch out the noun for a verb.
‘I am a writer’ becomes ‘I write’. Simple and if I do say so myself, a bit poignant.
The hardest thing about this is rewiring the scripts in your head to use verbs and the mental reaffirmation. You need to force your mind to remove the nouns and the self-judgment that comes with it. Now that your identity is a bunch of verbs, your mind isn’t stopping you from learning and creating anything.
Your identity is no longer a chain.
A touch of the real world
Here’s the thing about everything I said. You’re still going to get labeled and you are going to express yourself to others using nouns.
That’s just how the world is and short of brainwashing the entire population, there isn’t a thing you can do.
What you can control is how you describe yourself.
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