How to Shape Your Identity & Goals | Dr. Maya Shankar

Maya distinguishes between defining yourself by what you do (e.g., ‘I am a violinist’) versus why you do it (e.g., ‘I’m driven by deep human connection’). When her violin career ended abruptly at 15, the ‘what’ disappeared and she experienced identity paralysis—a sense of being stuck and unable to imagine a future. By reverse-engineering what she truly loved about violin (emotional connection, evoking feelings in others), she found that same ‘through line’ in cognitive science, public policy, and podcasting. Action: List the roles you’ve held and ask, for each, “What did I actually love about this?” Extract the underlying motives (e.g., problem-solving, teaching, creativity, connection) and use those as your identity anchors.

Identity foreclosure occurs when families, cultures, or peer groups impose narrow scripts (‘you’re the math kid’, ‘you’ll be a doctor’), which can limit what you believe you’re capable of. Essentialism—the belief that people have fixed, immutable ‘essences’—feeds shame (‘I am bad’ vs. ‘I did something bad’) and makes change feel impossible. Maya recommends treating yourself as a dynamic bundle of behaviors and thoughts rather than a fixed essence, which supports a growth mindset and reduces self-berating narratives. Action: Notice any ‘I am just the kind of person who…’ stories and rewrite them as ‘So far I have tended to…’ to leave room for change.

Both Maya and Andrew describe awe-filled moments (Maya with Beethoven’s violin concerto, Andrew with New York City and neuroscience) that later became career-defining. The key shift wasn’t just experiencing awe, but seeing ‘a place for myself’ in the domain—moving from passive admiration to an active verb state (‘I can do something here’). Research on awe (Dacher Keltner) shows it involves perceived vastness and a need for accommodation—updating one’s mental model of the world—which increases openness. Action: When something feels awe-inspiring, explicitly ask, “Is there a role I could play in this world?” and experiment with small, active steps (e.g., a class, a project, a conversation) rather than just consuming.

Maya outlines several evidence-backed goal techniques: (1) Frame goals in approach terms (‘eat more vegetables’) rather than avoidance (‘avoid junk food’) to make progress easier to track and more motivating. (2) Preserve agency by setting or co-setting your own targets; humans are more motivated when they feel in the driver’s seat. (3) Build an ‘emergency reserve’ or slack (e.g., 3 skip days per month) so minor failures don’t collapse the whole goal. (4) Leverage ‘fresh start’ moments (new year, new job, first day of week) to launch new habits when environments and identities are already shifting. Action: Rewrite one current goal into an approach frame, choose your own specific target, add 2–3 pre-approved ‘fail days’, and tie the start to a fresh-start date.

Motivation is typically high at the start and end of a goal but dips in the middle. If your goal horizon is a year, that ‘middle’ can last months. Shorter horizons (weekly or monthly goals) compress the low-motivation middle. Temptation bundling—pairing an unpleasant but important task (laundry, high-intensity workouts) with a strictly reserved pleasure (favorite podcast, music, show)—creates immediate reward and makes return visits more likely. Crucially, you must only allow yourself the reward when doing the task. Action: Take one dreaded but important behavior and assign a highly enjoyable, exclusive companion activity to it; do not indulge that activity at any other time.