I am?

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I’m a football coach, a player or rugby forward, but that’s a label others gave to you, that fit.

When you say “I am a football coach”, is it your core identity, or just one that fits the present situation. Our identity is our assessment of the self, our values, potential and qualities as an individual. And they give us a basis for our beliefs, ideals and values that guide thoughts and behaviours.

As a very young child, their whole world is about them, separate from everything around and a blank slate regarding beliefs and values. There are a few behaviours, the fear of falling, and loud noises, but generally, we are innocent. As the child matures their self-consciousness grows.

Later the child recognizes himself/herself as a unique being, separate from “others” and the child begins to notice characteristics and features in others. These they take on, influencing and creating their unique identity which they carry into later life. There can be supportive or unsupportive, good and bad, at a very young age there is little discernment about right & wrong.

As we age, we live through experiences from different environments. Each is likely to leave an impression, some more significant than others, each identity will evolve and we will have many identities.

?This evolution of identities mostly happens in our subconscious. And therein lies the challenges we have within our lives, we never truly understand who we are. Our identity is created in reaction to the outside world and its stimuli, reactively, more than proactively. Our identities are continually developing, influenced, by gender, race, occupation, family relationships, peer group, political orientation, nationality, life experience and more – our life of experiences.

These all impact how "we think we fit in" and "how we think others think we fit in", at home, our workplace, the local supermarket anywhere and everywhere. We carry a different identity like a cloak into these different places in our lives, these cloaks may overlap and be very similar, while other cloaks may be unique to that environment.

To maximise performance from players sports coaches should be aware of the breadth and scope of individual players’ identities and how they relate to their overlapping within the sporting environment and outside of it. A sportsperson may be a "football player" (label), but they may also identify as being a son, brother, friend, or student.

The cloak we wear at work from our experiences and from colleagues’ expectations, results from us attempting to fit in trying to impress. A dynamic person may be proactive, ambitious, and successful, they influence their identity that supports how best to achieve this outcome as they imitate those within their immediate vicinity.

But our outer environment is just as likely to drag us down, at odds with our core identity and far from our identity of childhood innocence. Society and the media paint the idea of slim women are attractive, or that successful players win, identities that don’t resonate. A conflicted identity and we manifest a negative self-image, loss of confidence or dis-eases.

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Tension can arise when we have a strong affinity with a particular identity, often with total immersion and that identity is suddenly removed. Challenges with loss of identity frequently emerge during times of transition. A player who suffers a career-ending injury, retires, or our children leave home, whom we thought we were (our identity) is suddenly jolted and some can struggle to deal with this loss of identity.

Our real identity is buried deep, but we seldom get near it consciously, but we still know it's there, somewhere, because it is inside us and we are used to looking outside ourselves, reacting to the world.

Our reactionary identity is built on layers of attributes and experiences that we build over our lives.?

• Our environment influences who we are, no amount of willpower will overcome this. We will struggle to be a successful football player if we live with art students.
• Our behaviour is not our identity It is part of it, but behaviour is just physical reaction to events.
• Our capabilities govern what we do, but what you do doesn’t define who you are. A skilled football player, plays but it’s not who he is.
• Our Values and beliefs direct us but are guided by our identity, whether you believe you can or you believe you, can’t you’re right
• Our identity is at our core, it's one thing to ‘think’ that identity, it's another thing to ‘be’ an identity.

To stop smoking, you need to identify as a non-smoker.

Live in a state of relaxed, safe, curious, not looking for perfection and seeking out experiences. Your identity is limited or not by how you interpret your life’s experiences.

Finding your identity is a self-awareness activity, looking into what feels like the right thing to do. Change the questions you use, assess the values, and look at your Peer group

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Or if you want to step up your peer group, you can arrange a chat with me: https://practice.do/john-farrell/book/lets-connect

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