Have you ever let a made-up story take over your life? I bet you have. We all have. It’s called identity.

Here’s a small piece of wisdom many people understand on some level but rarely grasp in full: The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves determine how we feel. A positive story brings pleasure. A negative one drags us down. If our story feels too good, we feel like impostors, frauds, or fools. If it feels too bad, we struggle to accept ourselves.

In one sense, our identity is just a self-soothing narrative—a story we craft between the ages of two and five, then spend the rest of our lives refining, reinforcing, and sometimes reinterpreting. But here’s the catch: No one teaches us that we can change that story, let alone how to do it. And worse, we’re not the only ones contributing to the narrative.

As we grow up, we’re surrounded by people with their own agendas. Most parents, for example, are prone to impose their beliefs on their children—not only to protect them, but also to convince themselves that it’s okay to ignore their own wounds and insecurities instead of healing them.

Looking back on my childhood, I feel lucky. Not because everything was great or even just made sense, but because the things that weren’t great or didn’t make sense helped me avoid getting hooked on how others saw me. When we become addicted to how people describe us early in life, we surrender our freedom. And when we shape our identity primarily to meet others’ expectations—to ensure we’re accepted and not cast out—we commit self-betrayal.

We need a stable identity to live a meaningful life. And if we want to reach our full potential, we need a damn good self-defining story—one we believe with every fiber of our being. But believing it isn’t enough. We have to live and follow it to the letter.

Too many people let the opinions of others weigh more than their own understanding of who they are. The solution isn’t to shut out feedback entirely. It’s to live with such clarity and purpose that you can tell the difference between useful insights and distractions.

So, choose a story worth living. Commit to it fully. Trust the outcomes you create. You’ll be fine.

Funny—I didn’t intend for this to turn into a motivational speech. But I’ll get over it.