The Psychology of your 20s - 372. How to rediscover your personality

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

So many of us are coming to the realisation that we don't really know who we are anymore. We spend more time consuming other people's lives and personalities through a screen, than actually living out the person, values and passions that we have. On top of that, long hours, loneliness and the growing pains of our 20s mean many of us have no clear view of who we are. In this episode, we break down 7 tips to get your personality back, including:  Why your personality is probably frozen, not lost The value of unproductive goals  The need for geographical novelty  The 5 soul needs you need to fulfil weekly  The journalling exercise we all need to try, today Listen now if you're also feeling lost and disconnected from your true self.  ORDER MY BOOK Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast For business: [e-mail]    The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hardway with your favorite therapist and host Kear Games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit or armor. It signals to the world that you not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to, listen to learn.

the hard way on the IHard radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. 2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. I'm on my podcast, 2%. I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. Put yourself through some hardships, and you will come out on the other side a happier,

more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's TWO% on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends.

Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe, on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Look Back at it podcast. From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 is big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it.

With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello everybody. I'm Jemma Spike and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. It is great to have you here for another episode. Today,

let's talk about how we are going to get our personalities back. How are we going to reclaim who we are from the forces of scrolling and overconsumption and comparison and distraction? I have come to a pretty scary realization over the past months that although I may think I know who I am, I rarely actually act out the parts of myself that I most enjoy or that I pride myself on. And because of that, I'm in this like really aimless, lonely, hollow kind of distracted place where like, I don't really know who I am anymore. And maybe you've had a similar experience, a similar realization. A lot of who we think we are is just words.

You know, our actions don't always reflect it. And if someone was to ask you, you know, how would you describe yourself? How do you spend your days? What are your hobbies? What do you care about what do you do for fun? A lot of us, you know, we may not like to admit it, but we don't have an answer. We spend so much of our time consuming and scrolling and working that we don't really have a clear or at least an executed idea of the person that we are. This is how that expresses itself. You may not want to acknowledge that this is what's happening to you, but if you are feeling detached, if you are feeling an increasing sense of anxiety, that you don't know who you are, you aren't where you need to be, if you feel boredom, loneliness,

just like despondency in your life, if there's like a groundhog day sense of every day being the same, this may be what's happening. You have lost your personality. And I want to talk about how we are going to rediscover it again using actual psychology, evidence-based tools and tips that can let us become our best selves or at least discover the parts of ourselves, rediscover the parts of ourselves that we really, really like. You are not alone in this experience. Trust me. And investing in getting your personality back, finding what you care about and what makes

you want to strive, I think will mend a lot of like the deep psychological, I don't want to say holes, like wounds, psychological deficiencies that, so many of us are experiencing on a daily basis. So we are going to run through seven tips for how I've done this, how I've seen other people do this, how they've reconnected with the best parts of themselves that they've may be lost. I'm really excited for this episode. Without further ado, let's jump into it. So you guys know one of my favorite quotes of all time comes from Carl Jung. It is that the privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are. That is your mission. Even when everything else feels really scary, if you are at least discovering new facets and sides to yourself, you are, you're doing something

right. Now, becoming who you are means kind of understanding who you've been shaped into so far and then how you want to shape yourself from here on out deliberately or what you want to become. And that is the part that is up to you and that is the part that requires effort and like a mindset shift. People really assume that your personality is like what you are essentially born with. It's so natural to us that you just fall into it, you remain in it, you don't have to work on it. It is God given, predetermined. And to some degree that is right. You know, there is a part of us that just seems to like exist without influence. There is our natural temperament. which often remains quite stable.

Some of us have talents that we were like simply born with and there's like no other explanation for it. But it's also a lot more complex than that. Essentially personality and our self concept, which is basically just a fancy word for how we see ourselves in our mind's eye. It comes down to a few things. Genetics, the blueprint is one component. According to a 2020 study published in nature that looked at, twins, which is like the highest standard for these kinds of studies, human personality is around 40 to 60% heritable. 40 to 60% of who you are in some way comes down to who your parents are

or, you know, the DNA that you have inherited. 40 to 60% though is like a pretty big margin. Like that's, that shows that we don't really have that much of an accurate estimate because a 20% could go this way, could go that way, is, I don't know, not something I want to stake my odds on. I like to split the difference. Let's say 50%, 50% of who you are is, you know, genetics, is your parents, is DNA. Another 30% has to do with environment. So gender, culture, personal experiences, upbringing, education, country, trauma, those kinds of things. That leaves 20%, or probably more, that is entirely up to you. And that final part, that final 20%,

acts with great intensity on the remaining 80%. And I think it basically determines how all those other factors, environment, upbringing, genetics is expressed. So basically what I'm trying to say is that your choices to do with your personality and how you feel about yourself and how you feel about yourself and how you want your personality to be expressed, that at the end of the day accounts

could end up accounting for 100% of who you actually become. How you go about your personality and your life, yes, it might not be able to change the past or change your genetic blueprint, but it can change how you approach all those other factors. Maybe the reason you've lost yourself is because up until this point, you've let your personality simply be the byproduct,

of the things you have no control over and have simply accepted. Now, you're at a stage where you're noticing that that's maybe harmful and you don't feel good anymore, but you're also at a stage where you can actually put in the work and you can approach your personality and the parts of you that you feel you've become disconnected from in a very proactive manner. So with all of that in mind, let's get into my number one tip. number one go back to a simpler time i read this amazing idea the other day you don't lose your personality you freeze it somewhere between childhood and adulthood you just suddenly you just suddenly stopped doing all the things that you loved you know at some stage you you played for the last time

At some stage, you made up imaginary worlds for the last time. You stopped crafting on the weekends. Remember when you were a kid and you'd be like, you know what, today's the day I learned how to make lemonade. Or like, today's the day that I write a song. Today's the day that I like run around the neighborhood with my friends. We don't do that anymore. We just spend seven hours a day on TikTok,

consuming other people's lives whilst they perform for us, pretending they have lives of their own. A part of us that used to come alive during those moments, during those times of childhood wonder and delight has become frozen by inactivity and a lack of use. But what that means is that doing what your childhood or younger self enjoyed most is probably how you're going to find the missing piece of your personality that you're looking for. The piece that you kind of left in the past. you've got to start doing the things that you used to love doing as a child again as an adult.

And finding your way back to that joy that you had and that just like pure interest. So much of who we are is just like so raw and visible when we are children. Because because of the very psychological nature of childhood itself, you know, our little minds are open to so much. We have such a natural curiosity, but as children, we also follow the path of natural enjoyment with incredible ease because there's less, if not nothing, stopping you from doing that. You know, for example, a child who loves art can make art all weekend and just enjoy it because they don't have to worry about it being good. They don't have to worry, hopefully, about obligation, some children do, but hopefully they don't have to worry about getting dinner ready or, you know, how exhausted they are from, work or FOMO or all the other things they could be doing with their time, productivity. You know, a child who loves reading just feels the positive reward of reading without thinking

if it's productive, without thinking if other people think it's cool. It's the natural flow of joy that is uninterrupted by adult judgments, uninterrupted by adult frustrations and realism and responsibilities. that is why we probably felt most like ourselves when we were small. And it really reflects a lot of what we know about in a child healing and play and connecting with our younger selves as a path to authenticity in adulthood. So that's where I need you to return. Find an activity you loved as a child, the one you can remember enjoying the most,

doing the most, and incorporate it into your daily routine. In fact, literally put it on your to-do list at first. you know, the way that you would put personal hygiene or your fitness routine or your work priorities on your to-do list. You know, you're fighting back against some pretty powerful forces here who want to distract you from your personality. Your phone is a literal slot machine in your pocket. Busy schedules, exhaustion, the pressure to work more. You can't fight those forces randomly. You need a plan. You need to make it a priority to paint, a priority to play the piano. to make Lego, to go play sports, to craft, make sure it's on your to-do list.

And if you want to go even smaller and you want to really reconnect with that inner child version of you who felt most pure and like yourself, even just listen to your favorite childhood music on your way to work or on your commute or when you cook dinner. Music is actually a deeply emotional trigger and listening to nostalgic music can actually cue a similar mindset to the time you first heard the song. therefore really bringing you back to that simpler time and bringing back with it that same attitude, spirit, feeling, sense of authenticity, as long as you make it a priority. This brings me to tip number two.

Make sure that you are fulfilling one of your core soul needs per day. Soul needs are the spiritual things you do to feel your cup purely by feeling human. It doesn't have to be productive. It's purely by practicing the things that make us unlike anything else on the planet. And when I say spiritual, I don't mean religious. I don't mean prayer. That can be part of it for you. I mean the stuff that makes you feel like you literally, you have a soul. These include adventure and curiosity. That is a soul need. Playfulness and silliness. Being seen and kinship. Humor and laughter. deep enjoyment or indulgence, you know, really spending extra time making your dinner, feeling the warmth of the sun, spending an extra five minutes in bed, sex or deep physical connection with yourself or others, or and creating something that didn't exist this morning. So those are some of your soul needs. Your soul needs are the things that make you sentient, alive, feeling. Specifically though, they make you feel,

not like a machine. Often we lose our personalities because we do craft our daily lives to reflect that more of a machine. And machines, they don't have personalities. Like, AI doesn't have a personality. A truck doesn't have a personality. A lawnmower, a typewriter doesn't have a personality unless we, as humans, the sentient creatures, apply it onto them. So how can you expect yourself to have a personality? How can you expect yourself to know who you are. If you act like a machine, if your daily life is, get up, plug in, commute, water, eat, operate in, out, produce, go home, turn off. That's really what like the daily, like daily life is trying to push us into becoming or is incidentally pushing us into becoming. You have to act out against that. There was a recent paper I read

about burnout due to monotony, not just excess work. That was so fascinating. You know, we typically think of burnout as just having too much on your plate, having too much going on. Essentially what this paper was saying, that actually making your life too simplistic and having too much routine can be psychologically harmful and can become actually quite exhausting and destructive. routine can be really protective only up to a point when there is no room for soul,

when there is no room for deviation from your routine. That's why we end up losing ourselves. So your soul needs, I need you to add them back into your life. I need you to sprinkle them back into your life like your childhood activities. I also will say this is probably the quickest tip of all on this list. Fulfill one soul need a day for a month. hit as many categories as you can and I promise money back guarantee right here you will be feeling honestly brand new you will be feeling better than ever you will like people will notice the difference

in you they will see something shining out of you that they haven't seen for a while or that you haven't seen or felt for a while either okay we are going to take a short break here before we return for our next three tips. So stay with us. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. And on my podcast, 2%, I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry.

We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong. Many of the problems that we are freaked out about in the world are the result of stress. Put yourself through some hardships, and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's T-W-O-Persent on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl.

You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends... Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific. con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands.

I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye's... said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do a little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast.

I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 was big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack all day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed correct. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line.

We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking, Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth,

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This next strategy is one that I frequently rely on in my own, I guess, emotional, psychological toolbox. I've spoken about it on the podcast before. I just have to mention it again because it is so important for people to know. This is my question for you. Do you ever feel like you are your best self when you are traveling? You are your best self when you are on holiday and suddenly you have, like all of these crazy ideas for projects, businesses, a rebrand. Do you find that like you are so much more productive when you study at the library or like

at your national or institutional library rather than the one that you typically study at? Or that you are so much more productive after a hike after you've been outdoors. These are all leading questions. You're probably going to say yes. What you are experiencing in the same. moment is the psychological power of geographical novelty, specifically the power of a new environment. This is somewhat similar to our last tip, but it focuses mainly on like your location. If you want to get your personality back, like you've got to be putting yourself in new

environments. There is this fantastic, could not recommend enough series of research by the researcher David Gonzalez and his team that they conducted between, I think it was like, late 2000, like 2017, 2018, where they essentially explored the importance of novelty for our memory,

for our neural health, and crucially for our personality. And they found that when looking at, like, thousands of people, literally thousands of people of all ages, all ethnicities, all cultures, all genders,

those who had novel experiences, those who put themselves in new environments, tried new things, tried new food, music, movies, were so much happier. And they also had a deeper sense of personal enlightenment and they knew who they were. For example, one 2017 study in particular observed production workers who were given novel tasks once a shift and they found that afterwards these people felt better about themselves. They had more grey matter in their brains compared to those who didn't have these novel experiences, who didn't have to solve unfamiliar problems.

What that means for you is give yourself new, curious challenges, get into new spaces, get into new environments wherever you can, different routes to work, walk a different way to work every single day just for fun, studying in a new library, going to a different coffee shop rather than your favorite. it. Even like watching something new at night instead of the same episode of the office for like the fifth time in a row, which I am very much guilty of, you know, the reason this is helpful for getting our personality back is because it ensures that our brains remain plastic and adaptable. Your brain was built for newness. It was built to be challenged and inspired by the world to taste berries, to experience awe, to meet new people, to see new types of trees. And when it doesn't get that,

I kind of imagine it like turns into like a zoo animal of sorts, like a tiger, you know, pacing up and down, pacing up and down, its cage, kind of trapped in by the, by the boringness of things. And you will feel the difference in the wiring of your brain when you make this a priority. your brain moves from stagnant and bored, like, you know, a river with no flow to like expansive and rushing and curious and fresh. I just think it is like one of the easiest things you could do tomorrow to feel more like yourself just by like opening your brain up a little bit more to the world. Okay, tip number four, you will start to see a theme here at this point. Have a completely unproductive goal and make it really, really random, like totally weird,

totally separate from everything else you're doing in life. You can call it a side quest, a side quest, if you will, that will take effort and time, but does not feel exhausting nor productive or like productive in one sense of the world. Let me kind of explain what I mean by this. Let me give you some examples. of what I mean by these side quests or these unproductive goals. For example, read five biographies about artists you admire. Memorize all 196 flags.

Go to every museum in the town, city, place where you live before the end of the year. Paint a portrait for every single one of your friends by the end of the year. Learn how to make your own clothes. You know, the best example of this is if you've read the book slash saying, movie Julian Julia, where this woman basically is like, I'm going to cook my way through a Julia child cookbook in one year. That is a great example. That is an, you know, I hate using the word unproductive, but unproductive for her other ambitions, an unproductive goal that still feels nourishing and is difficult. I think the core element of this is that it adds a bit of

whimsy and a lack of seriousness back into your life whilst still asking you to strive in a direction that you normally don't. All of those weird goals I gave you, like they are achievable with effort. They also tap into something we've really been discussing this whole episode, which is like a sense of wonder and a humanness and a curiosity that we've probably lost along the way at some point. what is the psychological justification for this? The psychological justification for setting an unproductive goal as a means to reconnect with your personality is that it's diversifying your personality. The way people diversify investments, it's ensuring that you have multiple avenues,

multiple streams through which you are able to investigate and explore and see yourself. You cannot be defined by one thing, one thing like work or, study or your business and think that that's going to deliver you a happy life. In our 20s particularly, you know, there is this major emphasis on being focused, selective, choosing one path to specialize in, whether it's choosing a major, choosing a sport, choosing a hobby, choosing a literal career path, and just like being on that until you retire, basically concentrating all your effort on one thing for the next 40, 50 years. You know, even I feel like at times I am guilty of that because having that focus does bring results,

but does it make you feel alive if you have nothing else going on in your life? Does it make you feel connected to who you are? Let's be honest, not all the time. We get that laser focus and everything else fades away. And so what happens? What happens when things, when that thing isn't satisfying anymore? What happens when you get fired? What happens when you want to change when the main focus drops off?

You're kind of left with like a bit of a wasteland. You're left contemplating who you are and life feels very narrow because it's almost like, there's going to be a weird metaphor. It's almost like you've put these glimplating. glasses on that narrow your focus and then you take them off and you expect your eye to suddenly be able to to see what's out on the periphery and what's out all around despite not giving it the opportunity to for many, many years. And now that I'm saying it sounds like a stupid analogy, but it's just, that's just how I see it in my mind of like you're literally blinding yourself

to everything else by not giving your eyes or your vision or your personality the opportunity to explore. That's why I need you to be collecting these side quests. Consider it personality insurance. If the things you typically base your personality on, work, relationships, accolades, praise, passion, if those things fade, they become exhausting. This way you'll still know who you are. And you'll still be able to connect with the deeper part of you

because you're expressing yourself elsewhere in a way that feels meaningful, in a way that doesn't feel tied to anything to do with your career or work or those kind of things of importance. It's just something you're doing and want to give a red hot go. Actually, I had this as a fifth tip, this next one, but I think it may come under this one. So I'm just going to include it here. My fifth tip was going to be, such kind of still is,

to start journaling, specifically commit to a year of junk journaling. Talk about life-changing micro-habits. This one is it. I started junk journaling. recently after my friend Sally recommended it to me, she's the most beautiful woman on the planet of this earth. She's just like remarkable. And I had this conversation with her middle of last year where I was like,

Sally, like, I don't know who I am anymore. I don't know who I am without my phone. I don't know who I am without work. All I want to do is work will be on my phone. Work will be on my phone. Like I don't find myself interested or interesting anymore. and she was like, you got to get one of these junk journals that everybody on Instagram's been talking about. Like, you've got to get just a journal and just collect literal trash. And I was like,

okay, I'll just try it because I trust her opinion. And what I found is that it's basically journaling on easy mode. I love journaling, just like out my feelings onto the page in an unstructured manner. But when I really don't feel like I have the energy for that, this is like the best alternative. You basically just collect junk like receipts, labels, stickers, train tickets, airplane tickets, whatever it is from your day, from your life. You get a glue stick, you paste it in your journal, and you just write small comments about it and, you know, how this junk is basically reflecting your kind of life story in a weird way. And it's given me such a sense of firstly, it's a really important ritual and a habit that I do every single night in a systematic

way that has been grounding. It's also given me such a sense of self-continuity. Basically, being able to look back and see who I was three weeks ago, who I was a month ago, and hopefully in the future being able to look back and see who I was now. And what I've seen, being my own case study, is that we find our personality through this process because by doing this, by journaling or junk journaling, we add narrative back into our lives. This is a core premise of narrative psychology. We like when something has a story to it that we can reflect on, including our own lives. We love a story.

We love when something feels coherent because there is a line that goes all the way through. Journaling in whatever form does that for us. We can coherently draw lines between our thoughts and our experiences. We can observe ourselves in the past and in the present. We see patterns in behaviors. We notice things about who we are because we are the specimen. We are the subject under the microscope. And that just helps us recognize the parts of us that we love,

that we may be forgetting, that we may be missing. Dare I say it that we may be. avoiding. Basically, journaling is like a mirror. I think that is why it is such a well-worn tested therapy or self-help method because it just lets you see yourself without, I guess, the frills that we put on for other people. With the junk journal, like you literally see yourself through garbage. Like that is as raw and real as it can get. Bonus to this as well. And this is why I started in the first place. It gets you off your fucking phone. If you want to get your personality back, and I know I've said this before, you've got to

stop consuming and start creating. There is a very famous saying, you are what you eat, you are also the digital content and digital world that you consume. How can you hope to be your own individual, your own unique figure to have your own personality if you just consume other people's personalities for nourishment. Consumption is like, you're scrolling, consumption being on your phone, it's like feeding your brain artificial stuff all day. Creation is like feeding it organic strawberries and vegetables and like delightful things that actually give it nutrients. One more bonus to this, and I'm sorry, then we can move on with the journaling thing, but just to beat this horse dead. I think that it also not just lets you see who you are now, it lets you see yourself in the future.

Let me elaborate on this a little bit. In five years' time, in 25 years' time, you may be at a similar point as the one you're at now, where you're like, who am I? I don't know who I am. What is my actual personality? And now, because you started journaling, junk journaling, whatever it is at this point, you will have 5, 10, 15, 25 years worth of information to help you reconnect with yourself and remind you what has made you you.

My listeners who have been journaling for a little bit for a long time, maybe even their whole lives, can confirm this for me. There are few pleasures as amazing as sitting down with a glass of wine or a tea and reading back your old journals. Every time I move house, I do this, it's the best. I like run away with the day. I like lose hours to just like reexamining myself through myself and like reading what I thought about this guy Ralph

who I was like had a crush on in year 8 or like this girl Lucinda who was like mean to me in year 5 because it's all there. And it's funny like how I reacted and how I. wrote and how I approach those things then is kind of similar to how I act now. And that's really gratifying in that it's, it's nice to see the continuity. So yeah, it's sacred, it's spiritual. It's a gift not just for your current self, but for your future self as well. So yeah, totally recommend doing that if you don't feel like yourself right now. Okay, we have to take one more short break here, but then I have two final tips for you. The last one, honestly being the one that I've

would recommend the most out of all of these. So I promise you it's worth it, stick with us. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. And on my podcast, 2%. I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more, to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry. We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong.

Many of the problems that we are freaked out about in the world are the result of stress. Put yourself through some hardships, and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's T-W-O-Persent on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl.

You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield. And in this new season of The Girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck.

I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the Girlfriends. Trust me, babe.

On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tapped Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim?

Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s.

To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people.

Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Keer Games. And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field

and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking, Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. and we're still chasing it and we don't know when we've done enough because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses.

Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth? Are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person.

Join me, Kear Gaines, is we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast. Learn the hard way. Open your free Our Heart Radio app. Search Learn the hard way and listen now. I will say a lot of these tips so far have been kind of solitary, very like things that we do in like the quiet of our home. But we really know ourselves a lot of the time and see ourselves through others and through their appreciation of us. If you don't know who you are, your friends and

family probably do and they love you for it. So you have to start asking them questions about yourself as if you don't know yourself. Questions like, hey, you know, like what song reminds you the most of me? What movie makes you think of me? What was I really like as a child? What is your favorite memory of us together and why is it so important? What do you think my biggest skill is? What is my biggest weakness that I don't know about? What are some words that you would use to describe? me to a stranger, like, almost like all these weird kinds of questions, and it might sound and feel awkward at first, and then it feels really nourishing that there is a version of you that exists and that is stable and other people see it and they love you. This tip works psychologically because

of one of the oldest ideas in social psychology, actually, it is Charles Horton-Cooley's idea of the looking glass self. I actually love this idea. I don't know why we don't talk about it more, but he basically says, claimed that our identity is partly a reflection. We can gain a lot of self-knowledge by appreciating or recognizing how other people see us and their reactions to us essentially help us figure out what behaviors we like and what the kind of person that we want to be, through them, through their appreciation of us. When you ask people questions like, hey, what song reminds you of me? What was I like as a child?

You are accessing what psychologist called reflected appraisals. Information about yourself that is stored outside of yourself, that exists outside of the own internal narrative that you have about you, that is quite honestly biased. Research shows these reflected appraisals, they play a really powerful role in shaping our self-concept. especially during periods of transition or identity uncertainty, like our 20s where we can't really trust ourselves to know ourselves sometimes. The memories that we have with other people are like, again, it's like a vault of stuff that stored outside of us that, it's like a bank vault of things that we can go to and be like, oh, that's who I was.

And thank God I stored that with somebody else who isn't going through this tough time. There's also strong evidence from self-verification theory, which was developed in the 80s, we seek feedback from others to stabilize our sense of identity. So when we do feel unsure, family and friends are often one of the most comforting things in that time because they are able to notice patterns, provide that information back to us, and give us a sense of self-continuity. Again, an idea that's come up time and time throughout this episode, the idea that, you know, there is a beginning and an end to our lives, but also there is a story throughout it all that ties together

and makes sense and has us as a main character. So finally, my last actionable insight for this episode, I want you to take all of this and I want you to write out a person I want to be letter. So I did this the other day because I was feeling, as you can probably tell, slightly on moored and I was in a hotel room and I was feeling very inspired by the new year as we are and I just sat down and I just wrote five large themes for the person I most wanted to be not for the next year just for my life like five large paragraphs on like if my character and my best self was siphoned down into five things what would they be and why Why is that who I want to be? And I obviously used I statements. Like, I think one of them was,

a couple of them were, I'm someone who really takes care of myself. That is somebody that I want to be. That is my ideal person I want to be self. I am someone who others find kind and welcoming. That is a huge part of my values and the person I want to be. I am someone who is surrounded by friends. And I wrote out, you know, there was a couple more, but I wrote out what that looks at, what that looks like, what that would look like in practice on a day-to-day basis in my life. So much of what we focused on in this episode is kind of like reclaiming the personality of the past, but finding yourself again rediscovering your personality also means thinking about your future ideal self. There is this idea in personality, psychology, and in some therapy self-help circles that

if you don't have a representation of how you most want to be, you are not going to end up. there accidentally. The best possible self, the person you most want to be, who you see in the future has to be something, somebody that you can articulate, you can feel, you can see, you can understand, you can detail in order to therefore claim. You know, there is this amazing TED talk very aptly titled, Your Real versus Ideal Self that I think you should listen to if you've resonated with this episode that essentially discusses how this kind of exercise, this who do I want to be exercise, helps you bridge the gap between, you know, who you were in the past and a vision that you most certainly have about your future self that you just, you need to bring to the surface in order to

become, you know, each one of you has 15 minutes to tonight to try this or 15 minutes tomorrow to do it. And if you're really feeling detached, listen, at most it can't hurt. You can do this in 15 minutes. It's going to make you feel better. Personally, it's so motivating as well. You will feel a wave of energy and you will feel like yourself again. What a little cliche. What a little nice way to wrap up the episode. So as we finish up here, it's just a quick summary of what we talked about today. If you're feeling unlike yourself, if you're feeling stuck, lost, your personality is something that you have control over. It is something that you can reclaim and change. The best ways to go about this are to, number one, revisit your childhood

memories and hobbies, fulfill your soul needs, pursue novel environments, set unproductive goals, start journaling, junk journaling in particular, ask the people, people who know you best, what makes you the best, and write the person I want to be letter. I hope these tips have helped you. Seriously, if you have made it this far, can I just say you are not alone in this? Every day you probably pass multiple people on the street, feeling something very similar right now. Most of them will never do anything about it. So the fact that you are listening and that you don't want to exist on autopilot is just marvelous and incredible and shows that you have everything that you need to rediscover or just discover for the

first time who you are. You know, we all go through times like this. And I think it says a lot about your intrinsic character that you want to change and that you've been able to recognize the state that you're in. So congratulations for making it this far. And if you have made it this far, my request for you is to leave a series of emojis down below if you're listening on Spotify that best encompass your personality as you know it. Whatever emojis come to mind, attract you, feel like a representation of you, drop them down below. Consider it a bonus self-evaluation exercise and thank you for listening all the way through as you have done. Make sure you are following along wherever you are listening, following us on Instagram at That Psychology Podcast. We also have a

substack if you prefer reading or want to revisit this episode. using our transcripts. You can join us over there. But until next time, stay safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself. We will talk very, very soon. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to learn the hard way with your favorite therapist and host Kear Games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit or armor. It signals to the world that you not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to, listen to learn the hard way on the IHard radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. 2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. I'm on my podcast, 2%. I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. Put yourself through some hardships, and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's TWO.% on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed, I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this.

He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Look Back at it podcast. From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84's big to me.

I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.