Don’t confuse identity with personal brand

“Just be yourself” is something we’ve heard time and time again since we were children. It’s not a worthless statement, but it can be difficult to adhere to. “Being yourself” is something that is getting harder to do in life, as identity is something so many of us are struggling with, and not without reason.

While we’ll always struggle with the *big* questions that have plagued humanity for years, “Why are we here?”, “What does it all mean?”, there are now infinitely more questions that need answering that generations before us never needed to.

Example: What is your personal brand?

This is a legitimate question that so many of us are trying to answer. Why? For career, online status, because just seems to be the thing to do. But what does this do to us? How does it affect our own sense of self? Our own well-being?

Your humanity can’t be branded

I’m no psychologist, but I can tell you it’s not good. “Branding” is something that was developed as a strategy to market companies in order to help them effectively communicate their key message to consumers.

Companies are not people. While it makes sense for a company to have a “personality” that can be succinctly summed up in a sentence or two, human beings are not the same. People have a depth and fluidity to them that can never be fully captured by a mission statement. We can not be summed up by a logo. We are so much more than a brand.

And yet, with the rise of social media, it is what we are continually told we need to accomplish. This leads us to try and eliminate the parts of ourselves we don’t like, or worse, the parts we do like, but we feel don’t “fit” with the one-dimensional image of ourselves that we’re trying to project.

This results in a dismaying lack of authenticity. It alienates so many traits, actions and facets of being human that are really truly so integral to our beings.

Remember to create healthy division in your life between who you are and what you represent as a professional.

Recognize your separate personas

The first step is to recognize that you even have multiple personas, and learning to compartmentalize them is important.

The person you are at home isn’t the person you are at work, and that’s a good thing. You should never feel pressure to mix those two identities, or to have to choose between them.

But when who we are at work becomes the person we are online, things get tricky. We start to meld our two personalities together because, while social media is personal, we do often use it to help build our personal brands.

Sometimes our social media even serves to complement our resumes, as so many companies are now asking you to list your various accounts on job applications.

Have a curated account and a personal account

One solution to this problem is to create “professional” pages.

Have a public handle where you post photos of your professional accomplishments, share work-related blogs, and promote curated content that fits with the professional image you want to maintain.

Save rants about your favourite TV shows, pictures from family barbecues and other content for your personal pages that you keep private, for friends and family.

It’s not to say that those certain opinions and experiences aren’t important, nor is it saying that you even have to have a place to share them. But if you find yourself feeling torn about what to post, or that the image you’re portraying isn’t as true to you as it should be, recognize the difference between your curated self and your real-life self, and more importantly, the appropriate audience for each.

Turn to journalling

It’s also important to recognize that not everything in your life needs to be on the internet. Identity is tricky, and finding it under the critical eye of a world-wide online community is less than ideal.

Try instead to spend some time getting to know yourself better.

Journalling allows the same self-expression that social media does, but on a much more raw, personal and unfiltered level. While it may seem redundant (why would I write down the things I’m thinking? I’m in my own head; I already know what’s going on up there), you would be surprised at some of the revelations that come to fruition when you force yourself to put pen to paper.

Push yourself to do things you normally wouldn’t

While the “do one thing a day that scares you” trope can be a bit cliché, there is something to be said for pushing your limits. When we cling to our “brands” we can often get into the habit of limiting ourselves to the experiences or activities that we feel “fit” with that persona.

But you should never feel limited! Find new things to try because experiences, especially new, scary ones, are what promote growth.

While your “brand” should be consistent, you don’t have to be

This growth is so important because change is such a key component of life. Yes, it’s scary, and yes, it’s uncomfortable, but it’s what makes us different from a company. A life is not equivalent to a corporation, and while your carefully curated brand should be consistent, your experiences, likes, dislikes — anything that makes you, you — doesn’t have to be.

In fact if it was, you’d be pretty boring.

While I can not help you define who you are as a person, I do encourage you to create division and boundaries in your life between your being and these (at times) toxic questions. Do not allow yourself to be put in a box. Love your faults, your mistakes, your imperfections. As sure as a pulse, they’re the things that assure you you’re alive and human.