What Works

7Choosing Your Destination

Understanding the why behind what you're making allows you to uncover your intent and potential.

— Abby Covert, How to Make Sense of Any Mess⁷²

WHO DO YOU want to become? It's time to return to this question. In Chapter 3, I take a close look at identity and explore the concept of the network self. We can think about who we are as a web of interconnected identities based on our psychology, biology, and relationships. Because that web of identities changes over time, our sense of self evolves, too. When we make deliberate choices about the identities we take on and the ones we let go of, we become agents of our own growth. When we decide to take on a new identity, it doesn't diminish our other identities. When we decide to let go of an identity, we can still acknowledge the role of that identity in our lives. New identities are the natural result of curiosity or new discoveries. Similarly, to let go of an identity doesn't mean failure—some identities serve us for a period of time before fading into the background.

As I've mentioned before, I started to make some profound personal changes about five years ago. But it wasn't until a key experience catalyzed a whole new vision of who I wanted to become that I realized just how profoundly my identity would shift. I had just finished leading a small retreat in Montana, and my husband and mother-in-law had planned a special activity for the morning after. They told me what we were doing, but I had no ...