The ObservatoryIdentity and self-image
Who you experience yourself to be, which roles you have, and how stable your self-image is.
Questions to ask yourself
- 1How well does the picture you have of yourself match how you actually live?
- 2Which roles take up the most room in who you are right now?
- 3What in you is constant, regardless of role or context?
- 4When do you feel most like yourself?
- 5How could you give that side of yourself a little more room?
In the app, you rate the area 0–10, answer the questions, and watch how your answers shift over time.
Getting started
Exercise
The me without the title
Two thought experiments that strip away roles and titles, one at a time, until what remains becomes clearer
8 min · Compassion
Self-assessment
How is your self-esteem doing?
Six signs that reveal how your self-esteem is actually doing, beyond how it feels on a good day.
4 min · Rationality
Article
Self-esteem can't be talked into being
Mirror affirmations, praise and "you are amazing" never built anyone's self-esteem. What builds it is less glamorous — and doable.
1 min · Rationality
Exercise
Ask someone who knows
Your self-image is built from the inside. The people who see you from the outside hold information you cannot reach on your own, if you dare to ask for it.
15 min · Discipline
Exercise
Your blind spots
Most of this is about being too hard on yourself. This is about the opposite: the places where we see ourselves as better than we are.
12 min · Rationality
Exercise
Try a new role
"I'm just like this" is a hypothesis, not a fact. Write a script for a different you, and play it in a single scene.
13 min · Discipline
Exercise
Two minutes: you are more than this day
Write two lines about something that matters to you, and why, when the day makes you feel small
2 min · Compassion