Identification & Motivation

Paul Bishop

MA, LPC, LPC/S

2/12/2024

How we see ourselves impacts how we perceive our world. It also affects our ability to handle it. Identity has often been formed in childhood or through challenging circumstances and relationships. From this comes a narrative that we continue to believe even late in life that we are victims or helpless. When we see our identity this way, we will struggle to see every challenge as a threat and other individuals as more powerful than ourselves. This may cause our motivation to be survival and avoidance of perceived threats based on fears that have come from our history.  

On the other hand, if we look at our previous experiences from the lease of what we have overcome, we will see our identity less as a victim and more as a courageous survivor and overcomer. We may also take that one step further and see our purpose in taking the lessons we have learned as creating a new identity that has a purpose beyond ourselves.

That identity can then motivate us to face current and future challenges. When you look back at your trauma or challenges of the past, take the time to look at the strengths and resources that helped you through it. Then re-establish your identity as an overcomer with a mission to pursue. You may even find this motivation helpful in facing the challenges you have been avoiding and give you the courage to live out a new identity based on faith, not fear, and with a view of the future rather than the past.