Once upon a time, there was you…
In fact, the psychology of identity reveals at least three levels of you.
On the top level are your personality traits - are you an introvert or an extrovert? How narcissistic are you?
You have your own combination of personality traits, a bit like a bar code.
The next level down are your hopes and dreams, and all kinds of roles you take on. This is more like a painting with lots of different shapes and colours.
At this level, you’re saying things like: ”I’m a pretty hardworking student. I really want to do well so I can get a good job and make my family proud. I want to get promoted and succeed.”
And then further down again - right down near the very heart of you - this is where your life story is being told. It’s a story you tell yourself …about you.
It’s a story of your past relationships, achievements, disappointments, proudest moments, regrets…And it’s a story about your fears, and your hopes for the future.
From this story, a character emerges. Sometimes it’s a hero, sometimes a villain, sometimes a victim, and sometimes a victor. But mostly it’s a complex mixture of all these things and more.
That character is you.
A clear sense of identity
Right now we are all - teachers, pupils, parents - in a chapter that no one saw coming and that doesn’t have a clear ending.
This is stressful - like the way a good film or book can be stressful because you care about the characters and don’t see how they will move forward from their situation.
But the difference here is that we can control how we tell the story of how we deal with these times - it’s not in the hands of some unseen scriptwriter.
Indeed, what’s comforting, especially in such challenging times as these, is that it doesn’t seem to matter so much whether you’ve had good experiences or bad ones.
What’s really important is that you’re able to tell a clear, coherent story about yourself.
It’s that clarity that leads to higher self-esteem, greater meaning and purpose in your life, and better relationships.
Ultimately, this is because a coherent life story is the foundation of a well-developed sense of identity. You are the author of your own life.
Writing your own life stories
For example, you can write about your best possible self. This involves thinking about some area of your life (academic, social, career or health) and imagining what it would look like if everything went as well as it possibly could.
And the benefits of this kind of writing are based on hard science - leading to all kinds of long-term physical health benefits, as well as mental wellbeing.
Professor Dan McAdams has spent pretty much his whole life studying life stories. In all of that work, he has said that his most important discovery is the role of the redemption story.
Redemption stories start with something bad happening. But the story tells us how this bad thing is turned into something good. That’s the redemption.
Along the way to redemption, the main character may have to take a lot of hits and knockbacks, but she or he keeps going because of the hope that things will improve.
From Scrooge to Darth Vader
People who use redemption stories for key moments in their life have higher self-esteem, greater life satisfaction and greater wellbeing.
When you look around, redemption stories are everywhere, and always have been. From Scrooge’s redemption in A Christmas Carol to Darth Vader’s redemption in Star Wars to The Grinch’s redemption from loveless loner in How The Grinch Stole Christmas.
And so many more - some personal stories, some cultural narratives.
Getting students to pick out and share the redemption stories from their favourite films, books and even the lives of the celebrities they look up to will encourage them to see that redemption is real, and it’s transformative.
This is something teachers need, too - the bad day, the bad lesson, the less-than-hoped-for set of results - all these experiences can be turned into the start of redemption stories where the lead character will come through it all in the end, against the odds.
That lead character is, of course, you.
And your story can lead to redemption and hope.
Aidan Harvey-Craig is a psychology teacher and student counsellor at an international school in Malawi. His book, 18 Wellbeing Hacks for Students: Using psychology’s secrets to survive and thrive, is available for pre-order. He tweets @psychologyhack
