# Take Ownership of Your Future Self

<https://hbr.org/2020/08/take-ownership-of-your-future-self>

- Host: [hbr.org](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/hosts/hbr.org/)
- Saved: March 21, 2024 (2024-03-22T02:05:44Z)
- Record: https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/a77774057b91/
- JSON: https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/a77774057b91.json

## What Jamie wrote

If you've read books like Atomic Habits, Tiny Habits, or others this article covers similar ground. I like that it gets to what I think is the root around identity, and how we identify ourselves. 

> Identity is _far more powerful_ than personality. Identity drives behaviors, which over time, become personality. Your personality -- the sum of your consistent attitudes and behaviors -- is merely a byproduct of identity.
> 
> Your [identity narrative](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0963721413475622?journalCode=cdpa) is the story you tell about yourself: past, present, and future. If your identity is rooted in your past and present alone, that fixed mindset can make personality feel permanent. But if you focus on envisioning your future self, instead of fixating on your current self, it becomes possible to change your identity narrative.

This is the part that meditation practices of keeping the "self" as small as possible get so right. Self is identity, and the more things you attach to self you remove or make change harder. If your identity has 20 things attached to it, change will be very hard. 

Even more importantly I would suggest is to ask yourself what are the labels you've attached to your identity? And how did they get there? Were they your choice, or someone else's? Make sure they weren't a marketers choice.

## Facts

- Kind: [Page](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/kinds/page/)

## Appears in

- [WT281: Weekly Thing 281 / Fediverse, Odyssey, Echo Chess](https://weekly.thingelstad.com/archive/281/), Notable

## Same host

- [Design Your Organization to Match Your Strategy](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/65af2137846d/) (hbr.org, June 9, 2022)
- [Does Your Hybrid Strategy Need to Change?](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/7f4c1c633918/) (hbr.org, October 10, 2023)
- [How High-Performing Teams Build Trust](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/d2b6a892a905/) (hbr.org, January 18, 2024)
- [Managing Oneself](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/b8e93c239e29/) (hbr.org, July 20, 2024)
- [AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/412f9984f140/) (hbr.org, February 18, 2026)

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## Elsewhere

- Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://hbr.org/2020/08/take-ownership-of-your-future-self