Affirmation: I Am

One of the principles that author Steven Covey laid out in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People was to “begin with the end in mind”. In other words, look back on your life from an imagined point near its end (or even beyond) and get the perspective on what you really should be doing with it now. How do you want to be remembered? A lot of that has to do with the roles a person plays with which they identify themselves. For example, Michael Jordan will always be known as a basketball player. Steven Hawking has his identity as a physicist. Donald Trump is known to be an entrepreneur. At what point did these people (and others) assume their identities? Only when they achieved their fame and material reward? If not, how far back would you have to go to see the beginning point, say, when Jordan thought of himself as a “basketball player”? I submit that it was the moment that Michael, in his early youth, decided for himself that he was. Did he play well? Not at first. Did he have a lot to learn? Of course! But he identified himself with the sport, and that’s what he became, long before he achieved any appreciable recognition for his accomplishments. And so it goes for the rest of them.

I say this because I see myself as being certain “identities” as well, even though I may be in the “infant” stage of growing in them. I recently began piano lessons and feel awkward at the keyboard. The inclination is for me to say that I don’t yet play the piano since I’m just a beginning student. Nevertheless, I am a piano player (read piano teacher Dan Starr’s excellent take on this). I am a runner, although I probably won’t run in (much less finish high in) any races in the near future, just having resumed the activity recently after a long hiatus. And I am a writer. I write this blog, and at this stage of writing, it suits my purposes. As a writer, I’m bound to expand into frontiers that I would like to explore, and at a point in the future this may involve professional writing. Whatever happens, though, one thing is certain: I am a writer. Also, from now on if someone asks me whether I speak any foreign languages, I’m going to answer yes: I’m a speaker of Spanish, French, German, Polish, Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Japanese. No longer am I going to hem and haw about not being fluent in them. Fluency will come more easily with the deep feeling of identification within me of speaking them already.

I think the key with regard to affirming one’s identity this way is to do it in relatively generic terms, not being too specific. Thus, I don’t call myself a concert pianist, Olympic runner, best-selling author, or United Nations interpreter. That would be delusional. But saying that I’m a pianist, runner, writer, and speaker of foreign languages is the absolute truth!

This affirming of one’s identity, even at the beginning of a possibly long-term effort to achieve competency (and ultimately excellence) in an area cannot be underestimated in its importance. When one identifies closely with a dream, this internalizes it, giving it a better chance to grow to fulfillment. And that fulfillment of a dream can be anything from a humble showing of success or proficiency all the way to outstanding achievements and recognition!