Ep 29: Finding Your Identity

Paul Angone, author of 101 Questions You Need to Ask In Your Twenties, discusses the process of finding your identity and your unique "secret sauce" to bring to the world. The key is to push teens to take on increasingly more responsibility in their lives while also taking the right kinds of risks.

Full show notes

Similarities between Adolescence and Your 20s

While at times we feel freed from the teenage identity issues that held us back in our youth, there are moments in our adult life when we feel just as small and humiliated as we did at 16. It’s undeniable that recovering from hardship can gradually make you more resilient and able to face challenges. If dealt with healthily, lessons learned from hardship can inspire creative and professional pursuits later in life. However, you must first develop the maturity and introspective skills to be able to look back and laugh, knowing that you’re wiser because of the mistakes you’ve made.

A variety of pressures can contribute to teenage identity issues. While it’s not necessary for a teen to decide what they want to do with their lives at 14, it’s at this age teens begin thinking about how their grades, extracurricular activities, and hobbies can determine what they do with their future. Comparing your teen's successes to those of peers can further complicate this issue.

Is it bad that your teen is only focusing on soccer while their friend plays two sports while also putting in volunteer hours? It can be damaging to a teen’s self esteem to give in to comparing themself to their peers. While healthy competition between teens can be used as a motivational tool, comparing often gives way to feelings of inferiority. Instead of motivating a teen to work harder, it might cause them to have a “why should I even try?” attitude.

As a parent, you should avoid telling your teen what to do with their life because they might directly rebel against you or feel like their choices belong to you, not to them. It’s a tricky line you walk as a parent; you want to help them through any teenage identity issues by showing them their unrealized strengths, yet still give them freedom. Teenagers crave control and it would disservice your relationship if you were to push them too hard—but what if their lack of motivation is getting in the way of their success?

For Paul Angone, the answer to these teenage identity issues came in the form of a question––101 to be exact. Often labeled as a one of the "leading voices to millenials,” Angone is the author of 101 Questions You Need to Ask in Your Twenties (And Let's Be Honest, Your Thirties too). He has also studied the generational differences between Millenials and Baby Boomers, and started the popular blog All Groan Up a place for those asking “what now?”

In this episode, we discuss how Paul uses 101 questions to help teens discover who they are, to use success and failure to shape (but not define) your future, and to recognize the false facades social media often presents as reality. Though this book focuses on your 20s, in this interview we dive into how reading this book during adolescence can actually be a “cheat sheet” to overcoming teenage identity issues and determining what you want to do with your future.

Finding your Secret Sauce and Learning from Failures

Paul talks at length about teenage identity issues and the process of finding your “secret sauce.” This sauce is a combination of your god-given strengths as well as strengths you’ve acquired by persevering through hard times. For example, your teen may be naturally gifted at math but what really makes them unique is how failing a history test forced them to study harder than ever before. Getting a good grade in history meant more to your teen than excelling in math because their hard work actually paid off. Your teen’s secret sauce is not only what they’re naturally gifted at but the work they are willing to put in to gain new strengths.

The key to encouraging teens to take on more responsibilities is teaching them to take the right kind of risks. You need to help them get out of their comfort zones and try something they are afraid of without causing teenage identity issues. It’s important to show your teen everything they can gain from taking a risk––new friends, new exciting experiences, a more well-rounded outlook on life.

Paul recognizes that while getting your teen to try new things may be challenging, the reward oftentimes outweighs the risk. Things that seem unfamiliar and intimidating can end up being formative experiences for teens. Say your kid is unsure of whether they want to go to tennis camp or not. Perhaps this is the first time they’ll be away from you for a week. There’s a chance that they won’t like the other kids or that they’ll realize they’re the worst tennis player there. But maybe, being the “worst” will force them to work harder than everyone else and to learn from older kids who were once in their place.

Like taking risks, assigning new responsibilities to teens doesn’t come without its struggles. There may be times your teen will fail because they are unfamiliar with handling big responsibilities of their own. It’s tempting as a parent to automatically drop everything and take some of the stress off their teen’s hands. In order to help kids overcome teenage identity issues, Paul urges you to not succumb to this temptation right away. He states that you need to determine how big this fall is going to be and how much it’ll be worth it to come out on the other side a more capable person.

Most of the time, experiencing new things or taking on a new responsibility is not as scary as it seems. Part of overcoming teenage identity issues is dependent on how much they learn from new experiences or even failures. Sometimes the risks they take may even lead to their greatest achievements.

Social Media Pressures on Teen Identity

Paul also touches on the role that social media plays in contributing to teenage identity issues. He discusses the idea of Obsessive Comparison Disorder, which is perceived success that other people are displaying online. Paul has figured out a whole new dimension to the fears that arise from the presence of social media in a teen’s life, and in this episode he dives in to how parents can help reduce the impact it has on their kid.

Of course no one wants to reveal their greatest insecurities online. But teens aren’t wired to see this when they’re looking at a picture on Instagram of someone winning 1st place, or at prom with their beautiful girlfriend, or getting accepted to their first pick of college. They only see what they don’t have. In this episode, Paul explains how parents can help teens understand the false facades of social media along with other tactics to overcoming teenage identity issues, including…

• Helping your teens find their soul values-- core beliefs that drive their future decisions
• Determining what your teens are and aren’t willing to sacrifice for success
• Teaching your kids to think before they post

This was a very uplifting and therapeutic episode that really gets you to think about personal growth you’ve made since your teen years. I hope that this 43 minute discussion with Paul Angone will help you share with your kids how hard times and failures in life can help them overcome teenage identity issues.