Every few months, I fall into the same quiet panic: Who am I again? It is not the loud existential crisis of adolescence, where you cry into a pillow and dramatically vow to “find yourself.” It is the adult version, silent and sneaky, disguised as overworking, overthinking, and occasionally scrolling through LinkedIn as if someone there will kindly hand you a replacement personality.
This wobbliness, this feeling of not having a solid baseline identity, is more common than we admit. Most of us grew up being told to follow your passion, be unique, be authentic, as though identity is a static object you are supposed to stumble upon like a lost earring under the bed. Instead, identity behaves more like a rhythm. Sometimes strong and confident, sometimes faint and hard to hear under all the noise.
The trick is not to find identity but to build a baseline version of it. A home frequency you can return to when life stretches you thin.
Start with your through-lines, not your achievements: Most of us pin identity on things that shift, such as jobs, titles, cities, even relationships. But a baseline identity is not the scaffolding around your life. It is the quiet truths that stay even when the scaffolding falls.
Think of your through-lines
the qualities that have shown up since childhood
the patterns you return to when no one is watching
the things that nourish your inner world
Maybe you have always been curious. Maybe you are someone who makes sense of chaos. Maybe you are the one who notices details others skip. These are not achievements. They are anchors.
When you articulate three to five through-lines, you begin to build the bones of a baseline identity. Something like: “I am someone who learns deeply, communicates honestly, nurtures people, and creates structure from disorder.”
Notice how none of that can be taken away.
Identity is not a brand, it is a practice: Somewhere along the millennial journey, we confused identity with brand. We started thinking of ourselves as clean, curated avatars who must have a niche, a consistent vibe, a colour palette. No wonder we feel flimsy. A brand is a performance. A baseline identity is a practice.
You do not become grounded by describing yourself. You become grounded by doing certain things regularly that reinforce the story you want to believe about yourself.
If you want to see yourself as resilient, you do hard things in small doses.
If you want to see yourself as nurturing, you practice tiny acts of care.
If you want to see yourself as brave, you do one thing a day that scares you gently.
Identity grows from repetition, not revelation.
Borrow the gentleness of liminal spaces: Millennials became adults in a permanent state of transition. Recession, pandemic, layoffs, reinventions. We live in liminal space, between what we thought life would be and whatever comes next.
The beauty of liminality is that it loosens old roles. The danger is that it leaves you feeling unmoored.
In times like this, baseline identity becomes your emotional carry on luggage. Light enough to hold, stable enough to lean on. You do not need a ten point manifesto. Sometimes your baseline identity is simply:
“I am someone who is learning to trust myself.”
or
“I am someone who keeps going.”
These small self sentences act like handrails.
Make peace with being versioned, not finished: Maybe the most freeing realization is this. You will be many versions of yourself, but all of them can belong to the same lineage of you.
Your baseline identity is not a cage. It is the theme of your life, and the versions you grow into are chapters riffing on that theme. When you accept that identity evolves, you stop panicking every time you change. You simply update your baseline to reflect the new wisdom you have earned.
The goal is not consistency. It is continuity.
A simple exercise for days you feel unsure: When you feel like your self concept is melting, take five minutes and write: I feel uncertain today because…
But the parts of me I can rely on are…
And the person I am becoming is someone who…
This anchors you in the present while reminding you that identity is active, not static.
