The Only Self-Improvement Article You Will Ever Need. Identity is Everything.
Hey now, I signed up for moral philosophy and thoughts on the pro-animal movement. Why is he writing a self-help guide?
If you are interested in making progress for the animals then you should be interested in improving yourself. As animal advocates, we should always reflect on our actions to boost our abilities. Each of us has something we can improve, and often, everyone has something they are afraid even to start. These areas for personal growth should be welcomed, analyzed, discussed, and taken action upon. Making ourselves better will lead us to have more impact for the animals.
From a quiet, introverted reader who only wants to sit in the back of any event to now someone speaking out in front of a restaurant, having the responsibility of talking to the police and keeping activists out of trouble, public speaking at a fundraising event, and being interviewed for the evening news, I have grown tremendously over the past few years. I created this substack solely to refine my writing skills and expose myself more. I from a few years ago would not recognize who I am today. I know that sounds cliche (because it is) but having gone through this growth made me realize anyone who has said “If I can do it, anyone can,” (another painful cliche) is probably telling the truth. We are capable of so much more than we give ourselves credit for.
This growth is partly from applying what I’ve studied in the self-improvement genre. Books from Ryan Holiday’s series on stoic philosophy to James Clear’s Atomic Habits and YouTubers Tina Huang and Dan Coe, there is a never-ending supply of advice on improving yourself.
Yeah, and now you are adding this heap! What gives?
Unlike those self-help gurus, I’m not interested in making a living off telling people how to be better by continuously pumping out new content. I have, however, found all of their advice distills down to one concept: identity. Who you think you are drives your actions. All that is required for self-improvement is defining who you are.
Suppose you want to get up early and hit the gym every day, so you enroll in a 6 am fitness class. You read Atomic Habits and watch some YouTube videos. You are prepared. You set your alarm and put it across the room from your bed so you have to walk to turn it off. Getting up and walking helps to wake your body up. It also has a simple puzzle to solve before the alarm goes off to force your brain to wake up. Your pre-workout drink sits ready next to your alarm so you don’t have to muster up the energy to schlep down the hallway into the kitchen. Conveniently, you slept in your gym clothes, so no need to change. You are ready to make your class!
This is called “setting yourself up for success”. You control your environment so that you do whatever task you need to do with minimal effort. If you have to go through all that just to get yourself in the gym then I’d argue you do not want to go to the gym. Making the road easy to travel down does not matter if you fundamentally don’t want to travel down that road. That is, your core identity is a person who does not want to get up and go to the gym.
Identity is central to the equation of self-improvement. If you want to go to the gym, be the person who goes to the gym. It does not matter what is against you. The person who sets their environment up to make it easy to go to the gym lacks the identity that they are a person interested in fitness. The person who goes to the gym when they have a long day at work, have car problems, are hungry, and wants to read Josh Baldwin’s latest substack is the person who is interested in fitness. Their identity governs their actions. You can read Josh Baldwin’s substack later (which is still important!).
Epictetus was a Greek philosopher born into slavery (yes, this example is a little more extreme than going to the gym). He realized though that his masters could not control his mind. While he might lack power in external events such as being owned by another person, Epictetus could control his internal thoughts. He could choose his identity. This led him to be a master of his mind even if others controlled his body. He chose to be like the person who goes to the gym regardless of the obstacles.
Identity is central to training in the military. Boot camp is for breaking down individual identities and bringing up the identity of a soldier. Everyone wears the same clothes, sleeps in the same room with the same bed with the same haircuts, eats the same food, does the same drills, and conforms to doing push-ups and running with the same form. Everyone loses a sense of who they are to become one identity. The Few. The Proud. The Marines.
Great, but how does this help me rescue animals?
There is no shortage of folks interested in helping animals but stay on the sidelines because they are too afraid of the megaphone or getting in front of city council or too tired at the end of the day or don’t know anyone else in their area to work with. There is always a reason not to do something. We cannot control these environments to make these actions easy for us, similar to how the want-to-be gym goer sets up their alarm, pre-workout drink, and gym clothes. Talking to the city council will always be intimidating. Organizing an event when you know no one else is extremely difficult. What if your voice breaks or you forget what you were saying while shouting into a megaphone?
None of that matters if you have the identity of an animal rights activist willing to rise to the occasion. Instead of being scared of the city council, be a force that the city council will be scared of. You won’t be tired at the end of the work day if you have the identity of an animal defender set to do all you can to help those locked in sheds and cages. Organizing an event by yourself is simply an opportunity to meet new people to start your city’s activism community.
Reading interviews by Animal Liberation Front members, they all say they got tired of the slow movement of politics and lack of results from protests. They wanted immediate, more meaningful actions. This leads to breaking into farms and facilities to rescue animals or cause material damage to equipment. These are normal people who took on the identity of wanting to immediately rescue animals regardless of the heavy risk. Their perception of themselves changed their behavior. No one sets out wanting to break the law under the cover of night. They choose to because they believe that is how they can most help animals. It is now who they are.
Like Epictetus, we need to state our identity. Who do you want to be? Do you want to be a person that helps animals? If you want to help animals, make that your identity and do whatever needs to be done. It is that simple. Embody the Nike slogan: Just do it. You don’t second guess or doubt yourself because your identity is one of commitment to the animals. You are an animal rights activist. Now go act like it.