The Importance of Personal Identity

Building your Identity by Stephen Nash

There is a lot of talk and writing about identity in the pick-up community, most of which is based in “the

game” mentality. I discuss what I learned from that former life in my ebook How to get a girlfriend while mixing in a ton of healthy, HELPFUL advice – tested in the real world and everything.

Since I am no longer at all interested in anything based in games, I thought it might be helpful to write a bit about what identity means from the standpoint of a guy seeking a girlfriend, and a healthy social life.

If you look up the word “identity” in the dictionary, it will tell you this:

1 a : sameness of essential or generic character in different instances;
2 a : the distinguishing character or personality of an individual

“Sameness” and “Distinguishing” are the critical words here. What is constant about you? When you relate to others, what is it that you notice about them that distinguishes them from others? What might someone say about you? Feel free to ask people, if you want.

Typically, a person has a chief feature which somehow defines them to others. It might be that they are generous, open, or happy. Or, it could mean that they are suspicious, thrifty and negative. This little exercise is useful, but not really what we are looking for here.

What is more useful to men looking to improve their relationships with women, is to both understand themselves internally and then how that manifests externally (which is the entire point of my company, CEIC). Dare I say, the entire point of “the game” is to refuse what is internal and attempt in every way possible to create an entirely new “identity” to manifest externally.

This leads to the ongoing pattern of guys seeming “incongruent”. They seem incongruent because they ARE incongruent.

Here’s the rub though, when a guy tries through whatever measure to become congruent with this new identity, material, routine, clothing etc., he denies his true nature, his true identity.

Most guys in the community have a VERY apparent strangeness to them – no one I have met – well, save a very few (Mike, my former partner, was one of them, “26”, who worked with us at Project Hollywood, another), are cool, laid-back guys with a real life, and a real sense of their identity.

The others have filled their brain with behaviors, thought patterns, and enforced circuitry which is very unhealthy, and ironically, furthers them from their goal. It INCREASES the real space between them and themselves, exacerbating the issue of being incongruent.

What happens then? Well, the only women who would be attracted to such a confused and childish specimen would be someone equally confused and lost. You attract AT your level. Let this be a warning against pick-up, or at least most offerings of pick-up: that you can only develop yourself by becoming and evolving as yourself in the end, you will fool NO ONE by playing in the land of make believe. If you want better relationships, and higher-quality women/people in your life, you have to develop yourself first.

Also, an identity is NEVER built – it is something that we discover along the path of leading a healthy lifestyle. Identity, in the CEIC lexicon, is the same as “self-image”. The only time a man needs to build his identity is when he refuses to discover and develop the one given to him. This arrogance makes the host pay dearly down the road – this is your second warning.

So, how then do we develop our identities in a healthy way, which can naturally attract like-minded people into our lives?

#1) Refuse, right now, to ever play games with women or people again. No more gimmicks, no more routines, no more FRs, LRs, DHVs etc. C’mon guys – are you still playing this BS?

#2) What do you WANT out of life? What do you feel is your purpose for being here? It certainly isn’t to manipulate and lie, I can assure you. If you were to die today, what would be the deepest source of sorrow for you? If you can sincerely face this question, you have a chance of really growing-up. The key to knowing and feeling your identity, is in first knowing and feeling your purpose. You might not know the true meaning of your life, but you might at least be curious enough NOW to begin to strive to understand that.

#3) Based on knowing your real purpose, how then should you spend your time? If you could architect your calendar, what would it look like? One thing that can directly help improving my self image, is to spend time with people whom I feel happy to be with, and in doing things that fill me with passion and joy. Taking action in the direction on REAL self-development and life-enhancement is the best way to improve self-esteem.

#4) Speaking of who you spend your time with – how active is your social circle? How often do you need social interaction? Most of us need a balance of being alone, and being with people. Do you have this balance? Also, how often do you venture out with them and try new things? New restaurants, events, galleries, movies, parties – there is certainly a lot more than meets the eye happening in your neck of the woods, are you actively exploring this? Try doing one new thing/restaurant/venue per month with your friends.

#5) With intelligence, can you grow this social circle? Can you involve more people who share like-minded interests and perspectives? This is where social skills actually come in handy (which I cover ad nauseam in “How To Get A Girlfriend” and the “Natural Attraction” audio program) so that you can present yourself in a socially intelligent way to people, not in a socially manipulative way – BIG difference. By meeting new people, and by encouraging your friends to bring along new people, you very naturally are able then to meet new people. If you do interesting and cool activities, these people will be even more interested in being involved.

What happens if you can master these five points is that you really begin to grow and build self-esteem by honoring your true nature. There is nothing that can be gained by denying your true nature. Also, you begin to magnetize like-minded people to you, including WOMEN.

The best way to meet women for relationships is to attract them to you by living autonomously and honestly. If your lifestyle is actively social you will have NO problem meeting women AND they will have things in common with you. Also, women (and men) tend to want to meet someone for a relationship in a safe and healthy way. The healthy women don’t WANT to meet anyone via a cold approach, they want it to happen as it happens normally – through the process of living and socializing.

So, in short, there really is no “identity building” in real life (there might be in the “Donky-Kong” game lifestyle). What there is is identity discovery and development, but from the inside-out not from the ego-in. This is the only way to experience real self-esteem development, and therefore real, healthy relationships with people in general, and with women in specific.

That is the point of these newsletters, and CEIC. Thanks for your question AJ.

Your Friend,

Stephen Nash

If you enjoyed these articles I would recommend picking up a copy of his book How to Get a Girlfriend. He goes much further into these concepts… and of course gives away many secrets he’s been holding out on in the free articles.