#155: stop trying to be someone

👋 Welcome to the 155th issue of Open Loops, a weekly letter on clarity, growth, and building a life that feels like yours.

My name is Reza, and each week I share what I'm reading, building, and working through to help you turn confusion into conviction in life and work.

A very warm howdy to the 600+ of you who’ve hopped on over the last couple of weeks. I’m incredibly grateful you’re here, and appreciate your attention! 🙏

We live in an incredible age of identity construction.

LinkedIn asks us to turn our career into a beautiful narrative. Instagram asks us to turn our life into an aesthetic. Dating apps ask us to compress our personality into freaking prompts.

Even self-improvement can become an identity. You can become the person who meditates, the person who wakes up at 5 a.m. The person who runs marathons, the person who reads 50 books a year.

None of this is bad. I love ambition. I love working on myself.

But I think there is a subtle trap here.

You can become so good at constructing the person you want to be that you stop asking whether that person is actually you.

David Attenborough's life's work now fits inside a search box: around 5,000 episodes across 90 series, from Zoo Quest in 1954 to Secret Garden in 2026. A legacy this large was built one curious question at a time. Attenborough at 100

Austin Kleon's post-launch rhythm included a diary on tour, Friday trips to answer mail from his PO box, and one handmade mixtape every month. The work that keeps a creative life alive is often smaller than the work everyone sees. Austin Kleon

When a friend's name lighting up your phone starts producing anxiety instead of warmth, the problem may be everything you've agreed to without ever saying what you need... Boundaries aren't only how relationships end; they're often what lets them keep going. Ask Polly

Being reminded of these 4 lines from Rumi in an old journal entry (2022) became a useful way to think about the identities we keep adding…

In the first episode of the Open Loops podcast, I explore why movement creates clarity, how labels can start choosing for us, and what we notice when we loosen our grip on the story.

You can also catch it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Would you rather live your life according to the approval of others or aligned with your truth and your dreams?

Where in your life are you asking to be understood before you've made the same effort to understand?

Outside the newsletter, there are two ways to work together: Clarity Coaching for life and career decisions, and GTM advisory for startups that need a sharper story, clearer strategy, and a launch with more shape.