‘Is this really who I am?’

Costa Carastavrakis was leading a double life. Some days of the week, some parts of those days, he was a highly successful businessman running three restaurants, a high-flyer living the good life. On other days, he was a helpless addict – on his knees in front of the window of his apartment, convinced it was surrounded by flashing lights and police who had come to arrest him, or worse.

One evening, he had run out of drugs. Methamphetamine. Tik. One of the most addictive drugs available. He had to get more. He needed money. The ATM had a blunt message: “Insufficient funds.”

“That’s when the drugs said, ‘We can start selling things.’ So, I was like, I’m going to become that guy who starts selling his stuff. Then, you become that guy who starts borrowing money. Then, you’re the guy who can’t pay the money back. Then, you’re the guy who … people come after you. And I played out this movie in my mind … And I was like, is this really who I am? And is this really who I was supposed to be? Surely there’s more to me than this?”

A decision to change is often born from that question: “Is this really who I am? Surely there’s more to me than this.” It’s rooted in identity: how we see ourselves, and how we want to see ourselves.

Wendy Selebi had worked at a big bank for almost thirty years when she started thinking seriously about her retirement plan. She asked her pension fund for a projection of her future situation. To her shock and horror, she received a “red letter”, indicating that she did not have enough to live comfortably after retirement. The practical implications were frightening, but beyond that there was an identity crisis.

“I’m known as the lady that educates. I’ve travelled the country, going to campuses all over, educating people (on financial management). And here I am. My numbers are showing me that it’s not looking good.”

The birth of premature twins upended Megan and Greg Scott’s carefully planned and structured lives, crowding out almost everything else for the first long, mad months. “We were just shattered,” Megan says. When things became a little more predictable and manageable, however, she knew she had to find a way to go back to work. “Motherhood was definitely part of me, a part of my identity that I wanted in my life. But, I think, a part of my identity has also been very much having a career and being able to earn an income. I think also it’s something that fulfils me. It’s something that sort of enriches my cup.”

At the age of forty, Steve Milton was a founding partner in a very successful consultancy firm. They were working hard and making lots of money, but something wasn’t right for Steve. “The first ten years were awesome years of my life because we had a vision, there was a drive. We were doing amazing things,” he remembers. “And then it got clouded. It seemed to me that earning money and profits at all costs came at the expense of clients and doing the right thing.”

In his case, though, identity was also part of his resistance to making a change. He was a very successful executive. Who would he be if he let that go? The choice was forced upon him when a heart attack knocked him off the corporate treadmill. When he came to after flatlining on the operating table, his wife confronted him: what was he going to change? “I remember her words to this day. And I just said, well, two things. One, I want to be a Christian. Two, I need to get out of where I was working, get out of that environment. As soon as I was back at work, in two- or three-days’ time, that was it. I said to my partners, I’m out of here, this is not me.”

This is not me.

Surely there’s more to me than this.

I am not only a mom.

I am the lady who educates, (not someone who cannot retire comfortably).

In our previous podcast series, Change in One Generation, personal resilience and change expert Dr Frank Magwegwe spelled out one way to summarise change: Dissatisfaction x Vision x First Steps > Resistance. Dissatisfaction with your current situation, times a vision of a different possibility, times the success of first steps, must be greater than resistance. Only then will change take place.

When our identity is out of sync with where we find ourselves in life, it creates severe dissatisfaction. At the same time, it means that we can form a vision of who we want to be. If we take first steps, what Dr Frank calls “baby steps”, we can overcome the resistance almost all of us have to change.

Costa, Wendy, Megan and Steve were all confronted with who they were and decided that was not who they wanted to be.

The day after his experience at the ATM, Costa found a meeting of a group following the 12-step programme. He has been clean for more than eight years (though he emphasises that it is always only for today; that he cannot and will not claim anything beyond that.)

Wendy sat down with a financial planner and worked out an enhanced savings plan for the last ten years of her working life. She scaled down her expenses, making real sacrifices to achieve the goal of comfortable retirement – not that she has not continued working, but we’ll talk about that in another article.

Megan and husband Greg put in place a support structure which has made it possible for her to return to work. She had to learn that asking for help was not a sign of weakness. Also, being a perfectionist, “realising that you have given your best for today and that is okay. That has been a big lesson,” she says.

Steve slowly and carefully built a new financial planning company in which his values as a Christian are always paramount. His colleagues do not have to be Christians, but their values have to align. The whole team gets together regularly to check in on whether they are still focused on doing the right thing for the client even if it means a lower profit margin.

Our identities are intertwined with our life choices – our jobs, our partners, our friends, our lifestyle. If you are dissatisfied and unhappy, perhaps it’s time to ask, “Is this really who I am?”

This is the second of five articles based on the interviews in our podcast, “When Change Happens”. The series tells compelling stories of change and unpacks the underlying patterns that support or hamper the process.