A Brief Introduction to Step 3: Determine Your Personal Identity
You get to choose who you are.
Who you decide to be should be an informed decision designed to maximize your objective function.
The human brain is not capable of referencing an objective function and ideological tree every time it determines whether to reach for a donut, how to respond to a question, or what to post to Facebook. Most of our lives are lived in a sort of autopilot. This autopilot is driven by the type of person we have allowed ourselves to become in response to the serendipitous events we have experienced in life.
It is tempting to say, “I am perfect the way I am now” or “I can’t change who I am,” but both of these statements are patently false. Who you are now is a Franken-identity pieced together by experiences you have been randomly subjected to throughout your life. A personal identity you consciously create is truer to you than a self-identity created by random events.
To build your personal identity, you must take stock of your personal beliefs, strengths, and weaknesses to determine how they can best be leveraged in pursuit of your objective function. You must consciously decide who you are and who you are not. To assist you in this endeavor, we discuss the psychology and neuroscience behind the way we understand ourselves, experience emotions, maintain long-term change in ourselves, and relate to our goals to help you build an autopilot for yourself that keeps your behavior in line with your goals.