The Stories We Live By
How identity quietly shapes the life we create
If someone had asked me at twenty-five who I was, I suspect I would have answered with what I did. A mother. A wife. Someone who worked hard.
Much later, I might have added motorcyclist. Tour guide. Racer. Powerlifter. Writer.
Yet none of those things really answered the question. They were roles. Not identity. Over the years, I’ve realised how easily we confuse the two. Many of us carry around stories about ourselves that were written a long time ago.
I’m not sporty.
I’m not creative.
I’m shy.
I’m anxious.
I’m terrible with money.
I’m just not that sort of person.
We repeat them often enough that they stop sounding like opinions and start feeling like facts. The writer Mark Manson makes an interesting distinction between traits, adaptations and behaviours.
Traits are the parts of us that seem relatively stable. Our temperament. Our natural disposition. Some people are naturally organised while others are naturally messy. Some are outgoing, others are quieter. We can soften those edges over time, but we probably don’t erase them completely.
Behaviours are different. Behaviours are choices. And repeated choices become adaptations. Over time, those adaptations begin to reshape how we see ourselves. In other words, identity doesn’t usually change because we decide to become someone new, it changes because we repeatedly behave like someone new.
Looking back, that’s exactly how my own life has unfolded. I didn’t wake up one morning as a motorcyclist. I took a lesson. Then another. I went on a tour. I bought a bike. I made friends who rode. Years later, people introduced me as “the biker.”
The same happened with writing. And powerlifting. None of those identities appeared overnight, they emerged slowly, almost unnoticed, through repeated behaviour.
What fascinates me is how often we wait for identity before taking action. We say things like, I’m not confident enough. I’m not adventurous. I’m not fit. As though we must first become that person before we can begin. Yet experience suggests the opposite.
Action comes first. Identity catches up later.
That doesn’t mean we can become absolutely anyone. I’m unlikely to become naturally tidy. I suspect I’ll always prefer curiosity over routine, and ideas over spreadsheets. Those are probably part of my temperament. But behaviour gives us far more room to move than we often imagine.
Identity doesn’t usually change because we decide to become someone new. It changes because we repeatedly behave like someone new.”
I’ve spent much of my adult life reinventing myself. And it seems I’m not finished yet.
A few weeks ago I found myself standing in front of a camera again, this time not for a motorcycle magazine or a book cover, but for a set of acting headshots.
I have no idea where that path will lead. It may lead nowhere at all. But I’ve learned not to ask, Am I that sort of person? Instead, I ask, What happens if I behave like that sort of person for a while?
It’s never been because I was dissatisfied with who I was. Quite the opposite. It’s because I’m insatiably curious about who else I might become within this single, beautiful and ultimately short life we’ve each been given.
Every new chapter has begun with small, often awkward actions that felt completely out of character. Until, eventually, they weren’t.
Perhaps that’s why I’m cautious whenever I hear myself say, I’m just the sort of person who… It’s a useful reminder to stop. To ask whether that’s a trait. Or simply an old story I’ve repeated so often that I’ve mistaken it for the truth.
After all, the stories we live by have extraordinary power. They shape the decisions we make. The risks we take. The opportunities we notice. The futures we believe are available to us.
Maybe we don’t need to rewrite the whole story. Maybe we just need to write the next chapter. One small behaviour at a time.