Identify Your Viewpoint
What defines identity?
You possess the power to determine who you are. Fulfilled people are able to live a life true to their values and pursue meaningful goals.
How is identity formed?
Identity formation involves three key tasks:
- Discovering and developing one’s potential,
- choosing one’s purpose in life, and
- finding opportunities to exercise that potential and purpose.
However, few people choose their identities. Instead, they simply internalize the values of their parents or the dominant cultures (e.g., the pursuit of materialism, power, and appearance). Sadly, these values may not be aligned with one’s authentic self and create an unfulfilling life. In contrast,
A person may hold multiple identities such as a teacher, father, or friend. Each position has its own meanings and expectations that are internalized as identity.
Identity relates to our basic values that dictate the choices we make (e.g., relationships, career). These choices reflect who we are and what we value.
Identity formation involves three key tasks: Discovering and developing one’s potential, choosing one’s purpose in life, and finding opportunities to exercise that potential and purpose. Identity is also influenced by parents and peers during childhood and experimentation in adolescence.
Identity encompasses the values people hold, which dictate the choices they make. An identity contains multiple roles—such as a mother, teacher, and U.S. citizen—and each role holds meaning and expectations that are internalized into one’s identity. Identity continues to evolve over the course of an individual’s life.
Identity encompasses the values people hold, which dictate the choices they make. An identity contains multiple roles—such as a mother, teacher, and U.S. citizen—and each role holds meaning and expectations that are internalized into one’s identity. Identity continues to evolve over the course of an individual’s life.
Identity is never “final” and continues to develop through the lifespan. Knowing one’s identity accurately increases self-esteem and reduces depression and anxiety. When people are doing what they think they should be doing, they are happy.
Lack of a coherent sense of identity will lead to uncertainty about what one wants to do in life.
Your identity encompasses the memories, experiences, relationships, and values that create one’s sense of self.
Self-Awareness Theory is based on the idea that you are not your thoughts, but the entity observing your thoughts; you are the thinker, separate and apart from your thoughts (Duval & Wicklund, 1972).
We can go about our day without giving our inner self any extra thought, merely thinking and feeling and acting as we will; however, we also can focus our attention on that inner self, an ability that Duval and Wicklund termed “self-evaluation.”
When we engage in self-evaluation, we can give some thought to whether we are thinking and feeling and acting as we “should” or following our standards and values. This is referred to as comparing against our standards of correctness. We do this daily, using these standards as a way to judge the rightness of our thoughts and behaviors.
Using these standards is a major component of practicing self-control, as we evaluate and determine whether we are making the right choices to achieve our goals.
So what is your identity?
Confidence in one’s value as a human being is a precious psychological resource and generally a highly positive factor in life; it is correlated with achievement, good relationships, and satisfaction. Possessing little self-regard can lead people to become depressed, to fall short of their potential, or to tolerate abusive relationships and situations.
Too much self-love, on the other hand, results in an off-putting sense of entitlement and an inability to learn from failures. It can also be a sign of clinical narcissism, in which individuals may behave in a self-centered, arrogant, and manipulative manner. Perhaps no other self-help topic has spawned so much advice and so many (often conflicting) theories.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/self-esteem#what-impacts-self-worth-
Identity includes the many relationships people cultivate, such as their identity as a child, friend, partner, and parent. It involves external characteristics over which a person has little or no control, such as height, race, or socioeconomic class. Identity also encompasses political opinions, moral attitudes, and religious beliefs, all of which guide the choices one makes on a daily basis.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/identity
Confidence is a belief in oneself, the conviction that one has the ability to meet life’s challenges and to succeed—and the willingness to act accordingly. Being confident requires a realistic sense of one’s capabilities and feeling secure in that knowledge.
Projecting confidence helps people gain credibility, make a strong first impression, deal with pressure, and tackle personal and professional challenges. It’s also an attractive trait, as confidence helps put others at ease.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/confidence
Confidence is an important part of success. When you doubt your capabilities, it’s more likely that you will give up prematurely or settle for poorer solutions when faced with obstacles, setbacks, and failures.
The type of confidence that helps you achieve your goals is called self-efficacy, and it’s the general belief in your ability to solve work or life challenges and succeed. It’s also domain specific, which means that you may feel highly confident negotiating a contract but have little confidence leading a new committee.
13 Things Confident People Never Do
When we engage in self-evaluation, we give some thought to whether we are thinking, feeling, and deciding according to our preconceived standards and values.
You feel pride or dissatisfaction depending on how well your behavior matches up with your own standards of correctness. If you’re dissatisfied, you might make changes to your behavior to better align with your standards.
Self-Awareness Theory is based on the idea that you are not your thoughts, but the entity observing your thoughts; you are the thinker, separate and apart from your thoughts (Duval & Wicklund, 1972).
We can go about our day without giving our inner self any extra thought, merely thinking and feeling and acting as we will; however, we also can focus our attention on that inner self, an ability that Duval and Wicklund termed “self-evaluation.”
When we engage in self-evaluation, we can give some thought to whether we are thinking and feeling and acting as we “should” or following our standards and values. This is referred to as comparing against our standards of correctness. We do this daily, using these standards as a way to judge the rightness of our thoughts and behaviors.
Using these standards is a major component of practicing self-control, as we evaluate and determine whether we are making the right choices to achieve our goals.