#46 - How to Get UNSTUCK From Your Labels

Ever had an identity crisis?! I have after I blew my knee out in soccer, after I had to finally stop playing, after leaving my PhD and then leaving science in 2017...each time it felt like a hit to my identity. Some identities stick with us forever in a great way....but others can be DEBILITATING AF and come to define who we are in not-so-positive ways. But we ARE NOT our labels. We are SO MUCH MORE! In this episode, we're going to talk labels, how they can make us feel stuck, and how to switch up your mindset to get through any identity crisis you might be struggling with.

WHAT I TALK ABOUT…

• Why it’s dangerous to over identify with your labels

• Some of my identity crises as a result of that - soccer and science

• Our labels can be taken away from us

• How to change your mindset around labels and what about them you identify with

• How to work through the “stuck-ness” of overidentifying with our labels…

Resources in this episode:

Book a transformation call here

Check out my brand-new free e-book and training series here

Transcript:

Intro…

Hey everyone and welcome to the growth tribe podcast where we're all about growing ourselves to create lives. We love on our terms. I'm Ellyn and I'm a former biomedical researcher turned coach who fell in love with personal growth when it empowered me to transform my health, quit my PhD, travel the world and start my own business. But don't get me wrong, I'm still figuring my shit out too and I'm so pumped to share what I'm learning along the way. We've got amazing interviews, big stories, tips, tricks, and no bullshit action steps that we can all learn from. So with that, welcome to this episode of the growth chat.

Main episode…

Oh Hey. Hey there friends, and welcome back to another episode of the growth tripod cast. Ellyn here. I'm so pumped that you are back and we're going to follow up today's conversation with something that I talked about with Emily on, what was it, Wednesday? Yeah. Okay. We're a little off on the schedule this week, so we're doing Wednesday, Friday this week, and we'll be back to normal Tuesday, Thursday next week. But I wanted to give you guys some time to really process what Emily and I talked about. Cause we talked a lot about a lot of different things in that conversation.

But one of the things that really, really jumped out at me this morning as I was reflecting on it and as I was kind of doing some, some social media stuff for the biz this morning was this notion of labels. So that was something that Emily definitely has lots of opinions about. Um and I share them. Like labels can be something that is really, really destructive in our culture.

Um and we talked about it a lot from the perspective of singleness. How sometimes when people find out your single, there's either like a, "you seem too old to be single" kind of surprise or there's like a sympathy that goes along with it. And Emily and I definitely, you know, share the opinion of the fact that, you know, my singleness, her singleness, it's not a bad thing. It's not a thing that I feel like I need sympathy around. It's something that it just is what it is and I don't feel bad about it and nobody else should feel bad about that.

But what about some of the other labels that we have in our lives? You know, I you can also think about this in terms of like an identity crisis. I really feel like that's where our labels start to come into play. And I was reflecting back on some of my, you know, quote unquote identity crises in my life. And you might laugh at some of them, but I guarantee you, you probably either experienced them or are there other people that have experienced similar identity crises around the labels that we apply to ourselves?

One of the things that I was thinking of was actually the first I blew my knee out. So for those of you that don't know, I grew up playing competitive soccer. I was on, you know, a high school varsity for all four years. I was on premier league teams, but really early in my soccer career I started developing, you know, issues with my knees. It's, it's a genetic, what can we say? My parents always joke that they gave me all the bad things, but my dad's got bad knees, my mom's got bad knees and as luck would have it, I do too.

And when I was about 16, I blew my knee out for the first time, ACL, meniscus, the whole nine yards. And it is probably the first identity crisis I had in my life, you know, because suddenly not only did I turn my ACL, but they tried to repair my meniscus. And for those of you that are familiar with the whole knee recovery rehab process, usually they don't repair meniscus. And when they do, it means you are on crutches. Non-Weight-bearing for weeks, I think I was on crutches for about six weeks in a big huge immobilizer boot. I called it my bionic leg. And I couldn't get around and suddenly, you know, this athlete that I'd been who was so mobile, so agile could do so much. I didn't have that anymore. And in some of my like low points, if you will, on the recovery.

And during the recovery process I started to question, you know, "am I gonna be able to play? Am I going to be able to play?" Like I was able to play and suddenly my identity as a soccer player was in question. And it was the first time I, in my life I'd ever experienced something like that. And I was pretty young. I was 16. Fortunately I was able to play again.

But this was kind of a recurring pattern throughout my life as I, you know, got older is when I would get injured cause I'm a very injury prone human. As I would get injured, I would start to question, you know, who, who am I without soccer? Somebody once actually said to me, "Ellyn doesn't just play soccer. She is soccer." And there was an extended period of my life and that's how it was. You know, if I wasn't playing, I was coaching. If I wasn't coaching, I was watching, I was analyzing, you know, I lived and breathed soccer for a really, really big portion of my life.

And then in early graduate school I came to the conclusion that I had to stop, I had to stop playing soccer because my joints just couldn't handle it anymore. You know, if I wasn't, you know, tweaking my knee, I was hyperextending something. I was injuring, you know, pulling my hamstring. It was relentless and I finally realized that I had to give it up. And in giving up, playing soccer, I gave up part of my identity as being a soccer player. And that was hard.

Um but I want to give some other examples of how identity can show up in our lives before we get to the part where we talk about how we can overcome some of those struggles, identity, and also how we can change how we look at identity.

So before I get into that, I want to give you another example. So another example was in obviously in fall 2016 this is a big part of my story. I decided to leave my graduate program, but it wasn't just deciding to leave my graduate program. There was a big part of me that knew I was really leaving science in a lot of ways. I had no interest in continuing my life as a researcher and with the decision to leave graduate school. I knew that, you know, upon leaving my life in Michigan behind in summer 2017 I would be leaving science and research and that was, you know, it was interesting. It was an identity that I was okay with leaving behind. But at the same time that had been my identifier since I was like 18 you know when you choose a major in college, you start to become, and you know how many of us can relate to this, you start to become identified by your major.

When you meet new people in college, they ask you what your major, you know when you are applying for jobs, everybody's asking what's your major? And sudden, so that had been my identity for like 10 years. I was a science major. I was a scientist. I was somebody who worked in labs. And even when I went to Michigan and I was auditing a class in the Ross school of business at the university of Michigan I was even identified as, Oh, she's the PhD student. So suddenly here was another part of my identity that had been part of my identity for so long. Once again about 10 years that was no longer a part of my identity. I feel like we can all probably relate to this, but this is the danger of labeling ourselves with things like job titles. You know, our careers, our majors, even our labels of mom, sister, child, wife.

It can be dangerous to label ourselves with these things because we're so much more than these things and those labels can be taken away. You know, you can, you know, if you're a professional athlete, how many professional athletes I've ever dealt with the fact that when they leave their profession, who are they? No, they're no longer able to play their sport. They're no longer to have the job title of NFL player or MLS soccer player or you know, professional baseball player when they retire, they don't have that label anymore. When we leave school, we no longer have the label of being, you know, whatever major you know.

And as sad as it may be to think about even the labels of mom's sister, child, wife, those labels can go away too. And I know that sad to think about, but this is what's so dangerous about labels is because ultimately a, we are so much more than our labels that I just want to say right now you are so much more than your job title. You know the sport you used to play, even your title of wife or mom, you know, that might be a title that's very, very important to you that you hold very, very close to your heart.

But you are so much more than that job title. And I think part of you're so much more than those labels. And I think part of the problem when we too closely associate with these labels is that can lead to a feeling of stuckness. If you're somebody who's, you know, held on so tightly to the label of wife or mom and you feel this calling to start a business, you know, become an entrepreneur, it starts to feel maybe like that label of entrepreneur is clashing with your label of wife. Are you allowed to be both things? Well, hell yeah you are. But for some people they so over identify with their labels that they can allow themselves to be something else, to be something different or just in addition to, they struggle with that and that can lead to the feeling of stuckness.

So if you're catching yourself state of defining your identity, your worth, your value, or even just who you are by your labels, we need to nip that shit in the bud. Okay? We need to stop that right now. The important thing here, and this is really what I want to get to today, so I hope that those examples can start to paint a picture and to start to resonate with you guys. And now I really want to get into the actionable part of today. I really always try to leave you guys with some sort of action steps, some sort of thing you can implement, do you know, mindset shift, changing the way you think, whatever. So that we can start to work through some of these things. Cause this issue of the label shows up everywhere and it's frankly hard to escape in our culture.

But there are little things that we can do to change the game. So that's really what I want to start talking about is how can you change your mindset around labels. And really what I want you to do in this context and what I try to do in this context that has helped me work through some of my, like changes in in labels, is to think less about the label and think more about the thing that you're engaging in. That is really the behavior behind the label. So what the hell do I mean by that? Well, think about, you know, label as a soccer player. Something that I really, really prided myself on as a soccer player was, yeah, the athleticism, the stamina, the commitment. You know, I played soccer competitive for, you know, the last, Oh God, a long time. We're just not even get into numbers.

But I played competitively for a while. It was, you know, 24/7 soccer. I was playing seven days a week when I wasn't playing. I was thinking about it. I was working out, you know, there was athleticism there. Really it was about commitment and it was about, you know, pouring my, my body really into my craft. And it was discipline. You know, there were all of these behaviors that were associated with being a soccer player. And the more time I spent reflecting on that, the more I realized that those were the things that I identified with. Those were the things that I really built my identity around. You know? Yeah, I loved my sport and soccer will forever be my favorite sport, but my identity and the things that, that made me feel good and powerful and empowered about being a soccer player were more of these, you know, being athletic, being strong physically and mentally, you know, being, being committed, being disciplined.

So starting to think about the behaviors, the things that you're doing that are related to your label. So what about science though? So it's kind of easy when you're thinking about sports, one of some of the behaviors around sports, but some of the things around science, you know, what were some of the things, the behaviors that I could associate with that label? Well, you know, I really, really prided myself on my analytical abilities, my ability to problem solve, no my attention to detail. And yeah, part of it was relentlessness because as a scientist, shit doesn't work out a good chunk of the time and you have to be relentless in moving toward whatever it is you're working on. So those were some of the things, you know, there was, I felt, you know, I loved being knowledgeable, I got pride and confidence about knowing what the hell I was talking about.

So even there, there are, you know, behaviors, there are things that you can identify with and start to associate your identity with more than the actual job title or major itself. You know, things like being, being a mom, being a wife, being a kid, you know, being a child to someone else. You know, you, I mean you're never going to stop being somebody's child or somebody's mom, but you know, if you were to get divorced or God forbid a child were to pass away, you know, what were the behaviors, the things that you really took pride in about being those things, you know, was it loving unconditionally? Was it being supportive and being there for other people? Do you kind of guys kind of see what I'm getting at here? It's about finding the things that you were doing, the behaviors that you were engaging in and tying your identity to those things.

It's really kind of comes down to values. So that's really how we can kind of change our mindset around labels is associating a hell of a lot less with, you know, the, the general identifier of, you know, what sport you play, what your job title is, all of that stuff and associating more with the behaviors that you're engaging in that make you feel proud to be that thing. That's really what it's about. And then last but not least, if you're somebody that is struggling, kind of having that identity crisis and struggling with letting go of one of your labels, letting go of something that you associate a lot of your identity with, then this is my advice to you. I said it earlier, we are so much more than our labels. I was so much more than a soccer player and I'm so much more than a scientist, you know, I've demonstrated that to myself, but at the time, one of the things that I had to really start doing and one of the mindset shifts I had to start making to kind of overcome feeling stuck in my label and struggling to let it go.

One of the things I had to do was really start to look at all of the different things that I was in my life. You know, I was never just a soccer player. I was a student too. I was a coach too. I was a tutor. I was a teaching assistant. You know, I was a friend, I was a daughter. Starting to find all of the other labels in my life that I could start pouring effort, emotion into. And it's the same thing for you. Like if you are struggling, struggling with that and feeling stuck in that, start looking at the rest of your life. Sometimes we get so narrowly focused on one part of our life and defined so much of our identity with that one thing that we kind of back-burner everything else and it's really too bad. You know, t's how workaholism shows up and you know how we ended up getting burned out cause we're pouring just too damn much of ourselves into this one part of our life.

So if you're struggling with that, I urge you and I encourage you to just take a step back and look at everything else in your life. Look at all of the other identities that are a part of your overall identity. And not only do that, but like I said before, start to notice the behaviors that you're proud of and not necessarily the labels because the labels can be debilitating. A F the labels can hold us back and the labels can keep us stuck. So the more that we can remove ourselves from them, the less of that stuck shitty feeling we are going to feel. So I hope that resonated with you guys. I hope that some part of this you took a lot from but I urge you, I urge you to start to really separate yourself from some of the labels you might be over associating and over identifying with it harmed me in my path life.

It was difficult for me to move on from some of these chapters of my life because of them. So I highly encourage you to do some of the things that we talked about in this episode. If you're struggling with finding you know what those behaviors are for you. If you're struggling with feeling stuck and struggling with letting go of an identity that maybe is no longer yours to have, I urge you to reach out to me coachellyn.com/transform again. This Is the no obligation, completely, completely complimentary one-on-one opportunity for you to really connect with someone and have somebody ask you some of those hard questions that are going to really start pulling the answers out of you. I'm a firm believer that the answers are already inside of you. Every time I've worked with a coach, every time I've worked with a client, that's exactly what I found, but sometimes what we need is someone else to meet with us and to ask us those questions, to really force us to dig deep because it's in asking these hard questions.

In digging deeper that we start to make change. It's difficult for us to ask those questions of ourselves. Sometimes you need that outside help. So I encourage you to head to coachellyn.com/transform once again, that's coachellyn.com/transform and let's connect. I'd love to help you out. I'd love to hook you up and I'd love to give you the resources that are gonna help you level up your life and take back a life that is yours and on your terms. Once again, thank you all so much for being a part of the growth tribe and I'll see you next time. Bye.