Identity from point of view of this man:
Okay, so to break each one down, starting with the heaviest one which is identity, identity is essentially the version of yourself you default to under pressure is the answer your nervous system gives when you stop consciously trying.
It’s the version of you that shows up on autopilot. So, most people you know, think they choose their identity. They don’t.
It got written by years of repeated behavior, repeated thought, and repeated outcomes.
By the time most people start trying to change it if they even do, it’s already deeply set, which is why the standard approach of just trying harder and almost never works.
You’re pushing back against the system that has years of momentum behind it.
So, your default self is who you are when you’re tired or stressed or distracted. That’s the real you, at least according to the equation, everything else is performance you’ve layered on top.
So, you can look closely at how you actually behave when you’re completely exhausted, because that’s your default identity surfacing without any of the effort you’d normally layer on top of it during the good day.
It’s the same story under real stress where the underlying patterns push their way up to the surface and you finally get to see what’s genuinely been running the whole thing underneath all along.
Now, identity really resist change harder than any other variable. It’s been built over years and it won’t necessarily move easily.
That’s the whole reason most resolutions, millions resolutions fail before February. Most identities took 10 or 20 years to build, so you can’t expect them to crumble inside a week.
The change is always slow at first and then it tips and then it accelerates fast.
So, small identities shift compound into massive once over months, and the compounding works in your favor once you start.