The Only Thing to Do

This is why you can’t get too attached to one version of your identity. Progress requires unlearning. Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.

The real alternative is to take on the deep, slow, intentional work of personal growth.

When that mindset stops working for you, you have to let it crumble inside you. “All growth is costly,” Kegan writes. “It involves leaving behind an old way of being in the world.”