Identity Spring Cleaning
Navigating the Liminal Space
We live much of our lives on autopilot. We wake up, go through our routines, stay busy, and keep moving forward—sometimes without questioning if the things we’re doing, the people we’re surrounded by, or even the identities we carry still fit who we are today.
We operate under inertia, keeping things as they are because they work well enough. We sense when something isn’t quite right, but we shelve it for later, waiting for some undefined "right time" to address it.
And that time, more often than not, never comes. (Until it does.)
This is how we end up with closets full of clothes yet feel like we have nothing to wear.
It’s how we maintain friendships and connections that feel hollow, relics from past versions of ourselves.
It’s how we accumulate dreams and aspirations that once lit us up but now sit collecting dust—ideas we say we want but never actually pursue.
Because making decisions—real, deep decisions—is costly. It demands energy, clarity, and courage, and in the midst of everyday life, it’s easier to just keep going.
But there comes a point when we wake up and look around, thinking, How did I get here?
That moment of realization, of dissonance between what surrounds us and who we’ve become, is the invitation to pause. To stop. To take stock. To clear out the noise and reassess what still fits and what is simply dead weight.
To do an identity spring clean.
The Accumulation of the Past
Our identities are layered—built over time from experiences, roles, relationships, and aspirations. Some of these layers remain essential, forming the core of who we are. Others were once important but have since expired, no longer serving our present or future selves. And yet, we hold onto them.
Why? Because letting go is uncomfortable. Because we mistake letting go for failure. Because we fear that if we release something—an old skill, a long-held dream, a version of ourselves—we will have nothing left to replace it with. This is scarcity thinking, and in some ways, it turns us into a city of scars.
We cling to the past because facing the void feels unbearable, even though that void is where possibility lives.
The Art of Identity Curation
Spring cleaning your identity doesn’t mean throwing everything away in a rush of radical change. It’s about conscious curation—deciding what still fits, what deserves space, and what needs to go.
It’s about asking the right questions:
Is this still aligned with who I am becoming?
Is this something I truly desire, or just a fantasy version of myself I keep entertaining?
Am I holding onto this out of nostalgia, obligation, or fear?
What story am I telling myself about why I must keep this? And is that story true?
Some things will surprise you. “When did I get that? What was I thinking?” There will be parts of yourself that you want to rediscover, buried beneath the noise of everyday life. Others will become painfully clear as outdated relics. And some things, though valuable, no longer belong to you. Maybe they can be given away—shared, repurposed, passed on, rather than hoarded.
The Cost of Holding On
We underestimate the weight of things that no longer serve us. We assume they just exist in the background, but in reality, they take up space. They fill our mental closets, our emotional reserves, our sense of self. And the heavier the baggage, the less room we have for what’s next.
We fear the liminal space—that in-between phase where we’ve let go of the old but haven’t yet stepped into the new. But this space, uncomfortable as it is, is where reinvention happens. It’s where clarity emerges. It’s the pause before momentum returns. The key is to stay with it long enough to let something new take root, rather than grasping at old, ill-fitting things just to avoid discomfort.
Raising the Standard
At the heart of this process is a simple but powerful shift: stop accepting mediocrity. In our belongings, our relationships, our aspirations, and most importantly, in how we see ourselves. It’s easy to go along, to settle, to accept things that are fine. But fine is not fulfilling. Fine is just a slow drift into numbness.
Raising your standards doesn’t mean becoming harsh, cutting, or rejecting everything wholesale. It means making intentional choices. It means choosing to surround yourself with what truly fits. It means stopping the habit of saying you want something but never acting on it—because a dream that only lives in words has already expired.
So pause. Take inventory.
Ask yourself:
Who am I today?
What still fits?
What needs to be released?
Because if you don’t periodically check, you’ll wake up one day surrounded by a life you no longer recognize—one that doesn’t feel like yours.
And you’ll wonder, How did I get here?!
If you feel like you need a mental spring clean & want want to do it in my company, here’s your chance.
