Personality vs. Identity: How to Find Your Right Fit

Key Points

• Your core personality is your frame, and identities are what you layer on top, like clothing.
• You’re better off working with your personality than trying to change it.
• Play around with your identities to find your ideal, minimalistic fit.

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Imagine you met your genetic clone who was born 3,340 years ago in Egypt.

In what ways would you and your ancient Egyptian twin be different?

Your Cairo clone certainly wouldn’t be a nacho lover, digital nomad, NBA fan, or blogger. And they’d probably be more of a cat person.

In what ways would you two be similar?

If your clone were teleported to the seat beside you right now and you went out on the town together, traces of resemblance would peek through, right?

For instance, I imagine my clone would share a bit of an unconventional bent, even-keeled temperament, and poor dancing ability.

Those glimpses of similarity hint at your core personality. And the adjustable layers on top, which differ based on our unique life experiences and values ingrained into us from childhood, make up our identity.

Your Core and Its Many Covers

Your personality is your frame.

Your personality is largely determined by the way your brain is wired. This wiring affects traits like intelligence, coordination, and your CANOE personality traits: conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience, and extroversion.

You can change parts of your personality. But doing so is like changing your physical frame. Some characteristics are as immutable your bone structure.

Your personality will change with age, but as predictably as your body changes over time. There’s little you can do to stop those changes, either.

Barring a lobotomy or some other trauma, you’re pretty much stuck with the personality you’ve been given. Better to understand it and express it the best you can.

Layered on top of your personality is your identity.

Your identity is like clothing over the frame of your personality.

It is mainly determined by culture and circumstance. So for the same reason you wouldn’t feel as comfortable as most Brazilians wearing a thong bikini bottom or banana hammock Speedo, you feel comfortable in a certain identity ensemble.

Unlike personality, you have complete autonomy on which identities you use to present yourself to the world. This can make a much bigger difference in your life than any clothing choice.

A misguided sense of identity will give you the unpleasant sensation that you’re not moving as freely as you should in life. With the right one, you’ll feel comfortable in your skin and like you’re getting closer to your potential.

Find your ‘Fit

Your challenge is to find the identities that offer the best fit and functionality for your personality.

This limits your options. Just as the Queen of England and Queen B, Beyonce, are best off not swapping wardrobes, you can’t just throw on identity and expect it’ll work for you.

Even so, there are millions of potential identity combos that’ll work beautifully on you. It’s about mixing and matching to find your fit.

The challenge is there are no private dressing rooms with mirrors where you can try on various identities. The only way to find great fits for your personality is through trial, error, and some flexibility.

When you find identities that work for your personality, you’ll feel it. Others will see it, too. People who know you will say things like, “There’s no way I could pull that off, but you rock it!” And you’ll feel like a million bucks.

Suit Yourself

Daniel Kahneman says a poorly-chosen identity is like a handbrake. It holds you back and requires tons of willpower to power through, which lowers your self-esteem

But if you can identify misfitting identities, release them, and replace them with others that suit your personality better, you can accelerate smoothly in the direction you want to go.

For example, my introverted personality makes me as uncomfortable acting gregariously as I do wearing a stuffy suit and tie. I used to make myself extra uncomfortable at social events like weddings by accepting the self-image of being someone who “hates big gatherings” and “is not a party person.” To cope with the discomfort and force myself to into an extraverted persona, I’d drink my brain’s wiring into a mess.

Then I learned to separate my personality from my identity.

I stripped off the identities that made me feel uncomfortable and replaced them with something better suited for my wiring and the occasion, such as “low-key, easy-going guy who enjoys meeting cool people.”

By working with my personality in this way instead of against it, I can find ways to enjoy gatherings like weddings. And my hangovers aren’t nearly as bad.

Practice Identity Minimalism

Trying on different identities takes self-awareness, open-mindedness, willingness to take risks, and pragmatic problem-solving.

Your level of each of these traits depends on how your brain’s wired, but anyone can do it. It can even be fun. And once you get the hang of it, it’s not that hard.

But this ease of trying on identities has a downside:

You risk accumulating so many identities that they weigh you down.

That’s why Paul Graham wrote his famous essay about keeping your identity small. By “small,” I don’t think he’s recommending we cover our core with identity G-strings. The idea is to be an identity minimalist.

Curate something similar to my packing list: a select collection of high-quality, long-lasting, and versatile identities. But never get too attached to any item and always be on the lookout for upgrades.

Get Styling

You’ve probably worn some identities for so long that they’ve grafted to your core personality. And you may offend others by discarding some identities that they continue to proudly wear.

So if you choose to stick with some identities even though they aren’t a perfect fit for your personality, that’s understandable.

Start playing around at the margins.

For example:

• Bobbi has stuck herself in an ugly “I’m unadventurous” identity. But she also loves collecting stamps so much that she’s eager to search far and wide for new stamps. So she can use her “passionate stamp-collector” identity to prove to herself she can be adventurous.
• Manako has settled into a restrictive “I’m not active” identity. But she loves gardening. By pursuing this passion further, and embracing the physical demands of gardening, she can drop her silly cloak of inactivity.

Even small identity changes can make big differences. And they may motivate you to eventually do a complete makeover that makes the most of the beautiful personality you’ve been born with.

Increase Your Understanding

Go beyond the clothing analogy to better appreciate the complex connection between personality and identity wit these posts:

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Shoutout to printablepaperdolls.net for the images.