My client Jacob had already built and sold a successful company. So, when he launched his second business, he was confident. But nearly a year later, the new product wasn’t gaining traction.

“I thought I knew how to do this,” he lamented to me in our session.

The product failure was challenging something far deeper in Jacob: his understanding of who he was. He had come to see himself as a success—a designer with a Midas touch. Now the evidence in front of him didn’t fit that story.

So I asked him a different question: “Well, who are you if you’re not the guy who always gets it right?”

After some reflection, he slowly began to offer some other identities: father, husband, Latin American.

Eventually, he arrived at something even simpler: “Underneath it all,” he said, “I’m just a human being.”

When an Identity Becomes a Trap

All of us have identities. We may think of ourselves as smart, successful, or competent. We also identify with our professions, relationships, communities, and social roles.

These identities are useful, helping us understand our place in the world. The problem arises when we stop seeing an identity as one aspect of ourselves—a role we play—and start treating it as something we must continually prove or hold on to.

Imagine that being “the smart one” (a positive identity) is central to your identity. In that case, wouldn’t it feel threatening to admit you don’t understand something? You might avoid asking questions, resist feedback, or defend an idea long after the evidence has turned against it.

The Energy We Spend Protecting Ourselves

There is a surprisingly high cost to maintaining an identity. We have to gather information that supports it, explain away information that contradicts it, and manage how other people see us. The more invested we are in protecting a particular version of ourselves, the harder it can become to respond openly to what is actually happening to us, or to discover new possibilities for who we might become.

Instead of asking, “What is this situation telling or asking of me?” we ask, “What does this situation say about me?”

Instead of “What might I be missing?” we wonder, “How can I prove I was right?”

Humility offers an alternative.[i],[ii] Positive psychology fans will know that Martin Seligman chose humility as one of the “character strengths” that comprise the ingredients of human virtue.[iii] Meanwhile, in the leadership sphere, research has repeatedly associated humility with constructive workplace behaviors, including greater openness to feedback and stronger employee engagement and learning.[iv] Jim Collins famously described highly effective “Level 5” leaders as combining personal humility with intense professional resolve.[v]

Hold Your Identities More Lightly

With Jacob, I tried a simple exercise. I asked him to visualize his different identities as physical objects he was holding in his hands: entrepreneur, designer, father, etc.

Then I asked him to imagine tossing those identities behind him, promising he could pick them back up at the end of our session. He took a deep breath and tossed them behind his chair.

“What remains?” I asked, “How does it feel to not have to defend those identities for a moment?”

“I’m still just here. I feel open and present,” he said.

But something shifted. Jacob told me that he felt he could think clearly, now unencumbered by his identities. The question went from “What does this failure say about me?” to “What can we do now?”

True Egolessness Is Balance

The idea of “letting go of ego” can easily be misunderstood. It doesn’t mean eliminating your personality, denying your accomplishments, or pretending you don’t have strengths (just as humility doesn’t require passivity).

Furthermore, when less energy is devoted to protecting our self-image, more becomes available for the problem, organization, or mission in front of us. We can say, “I was wrong,” without internalizing it as, “I am incompetent.” We can receive criticism without letting it define us. And we can succeed without needing success to prove our worth. In the words of C.S. Lewis, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.”

The goal isn’t having no ego; trying to become “the person with no ego” can simply create another identity to protect. All we can really do is try to find balance—to notice when our ego has shifted into the driver’s seat.

Your Turn: Who Are You? And Who Do You Need to Be?

Think of an identity you value strongly or believe deeply, positive or negative. It could be the idea that you are weak or unlovable, or that you are “the responsible one” or “the expert.”

Then ask yourself: What is difficult for me to do because I need to remain this person?

Now imagine, just temporarily, putting that identity down. You’re not rejecting it, or abandoning it entirely. You’re taking it off for just a few moments as a reminder that it’s merely something you hold onto, or a hat you wear, not the entirety of who you are.

Then return your attention to whatever situation is in front of you.

How does it feel to contemplate it? Have more options appeared? And, most importantly, what do you want to do next? What do you aspire toward now?