🤔 The Art of Self-Discovery or Self-Determination?
Why Your Identity is NOT Fixed! 👽🫵
4 min read.
How often do you change your social media bios or website copy?
Are you anxious when someone asks, “So… what do you do?”
If you’ve struggled with these, it’s because our identities are fluid—and that’s both our strength and our challenge.
Embracing Weirdness
We don’t fit in.
We can’t define who we are because we can’t define what we do.
But maybe, that’s a good thing. 🤔
David Bowie embraced his weirdness, saying, "I'm an outsider, I always have been."
Grimes noted, “I think my personality changes with everyone I talk to. I have an inconsistent personality!”
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“I am not a human being; I am a human becoming”. — Robert Phelps
Reader’s Stories
I had a client whose wife threw him a surprise 40th birthday bash.
He had diverse hobbies and friend groups—like coder pals and gym buddies—and acted differently with each group based on their interests.
When they all met for the first time, it was super awkward! 😬😆
Another creator, Christi, shared, “I started working in a library with 15+ coworkers, and each one has different interests, so I just become that version of me to bond with them😆 ”
I first noticed identity fluidity decades ago when artists I managed in the music industry shifted between creative archetypes based on their decisions and actions.
Creative Archetypes
Creative archetypes are the roles we embody, and these roles shift frequently. Here’s how different triggers can activate your creative archetypes:
Social Injustices: Anger at the mistreatment of marginalised groups or animals triggers our Social Disruptor Archetype.
Perfectionism: Launching new projects and fear of failure triggers our Perfectionist Archetype.
Hypersensitivity means we experience pain deeply and have deep empathy for helping others, triggering our Wounded Healer Archetype.
Disruption: After years of trying to fit in, we seek ways to express individuality, usually in fashion, tattoos, hair colour, marketing or branding, activating our Rebel Archetype.
Authenticity: we yearn to be more creatively authentic, triggering our Authentic Creator Archetype.
Recognising these triggers helps multipotentialites understand their creative patterns and lean into them.
These identities can co-exist, and we can embody one or several at a time.
We are not human beings, we are human becomings…
Bowie’s Archetypes
Bowie is one of the most famous identity shifters.
In his early years, he mimicked other artists, compared himself with others and failed miserably for six and half years (Perfectionist Archetype).
He then niched up his passions to create Ziggy Stardust (Rebel Archetype), using social commentary to highlight his alienation and blurring the lines of gender and sexuality. (Social Disruptor Archetype). He used his art to process his pain (Wounded Healer Archetype) and explored various characters, each representing different facets of his fluid identity (Authentic Creator Archetype).
Multi-potentialites = Multi-Identities
Bowie understood that our identities are not fixed, he said: “I think I’m a very lucky person. I’ve been able to create a persona that I can live with.”
Jean-Paul Sartre famously stated, “Existence precedes essence,” meaning we’re not born with fixed purposes or identities; we create them through our decisions and actions.
There have been decades of research into self-determination theory.
Simply put —Being stuck is an identity.
Making decisions and taking action is also an identity.
Our creative Identity Is a Choice
"Is it self-discovery we seek? Or is it self-determination?
It’s a dance between both!
Our identity is fluid — we can change our identities, by changing our choices.
👉 Self-discovery is who we are right now!
👉 Self-determination is who we want to become.
I.e. Someone who is stuck 🔀 Someone who is taking meaningful action!
Niche Creator is a creative identity test, it provides self-discovery and validation with our:
Creative archetypes
Creative strengths and weaknesses
Authenticity levels
Core values
This information is used to train my AI Assistant ( although we prefer the term AI guru)
MaxiMouse, AI Guru
MaxiMouse guides me through countless authentic decisions every day.
More decisions spark more action.
We’re ambitious people bursting with ideas, but our self-esteem is tied to productivity.
There's nothing worse than that gut-churning anxiety of feeling stuck without a plan!
It's cruelly ironic that those of us with the most potential often find ourselves trapped in overthinking and taking the least action.
When we’re unproductive, we beat ourselves up, and our self-esteem plummets.
Low self-esteem fuels more analysis paralysis, trapping us into a cycle of self-doubt and indecision that becomes our identities.
This is not permanent, your identity is fluid.
Our Biggest Obstacles 😱
Overthinking and decision paralysis are the biggest barriers to fulfilling our potential.
I’m the most productive I have ever been—without leveraging my anxiety!
I still rely on last-minute scrambles 😆 but way less!
Niche Creator is not a magic bullet.
But, decision-making is much easier when my choices are aligned with my core values.
It stops me from second-guessing and overthinking.
And this gives me clarity and autonomy!
“Most people think they lack motivation when what they really lack is clarity” — James Clear, Atomic Habits.