Calling: The Highest Level of Identity
Atomic Habits is one of the most popular and influential books in the field of personal productivity in recent years. It collects many concrete and actionable techniques that help people build good habits.
But to me, the hardest thing in the book is not any technique. It is “identity” - in other words, what kind of person you believe yourself to be.
Why does identity matter so much? Because it pushes a person, at the most fundamental level, to repeat certain positive behaviors.
For example, a profession is a very concrete form of identity. A fitness coach sees exercise as part of their duty, so they will almost certainly go to the gym more diligently than the average person.
Long before he entered Major League Baseball, Shohei Ohtani had already treated daily batting, fielding, and physical training as the most natural thing in the world since his teenage years - because he believed, “I am a baseball player.” The more professional a field is, the more strongly identity drives people to demand certain behaviors from themselves.
But if someone is not already working in the field related to the identity they want, is there anything in the book that can help them build that identity?
Yes. And the answer is very simple: accumulate “evidence” through action.
More specifically, if I want to build an identity called “someone who exercises regularly,” then I need to start imagining what that kind of person usually does.
Then I might think, “This kind of person must go out for a run every day,” or “When the weather is bad, they will jump rope at home instead,” and then actually put those ideas into practice.
Over time, these real behaviors become “evidence” that gradually strengthens the self-image of “I am someone who exercises.”
In the end, it is no longer just something I imagine in my head. I truly become that kind of person. This is the concrete method for building identity described in Atomic Habits.
And yet, I have always felt that identity is far deeper than the book suggests, even a little elusive.
Why do I say that? Because Atomic Habits is, at its core, a practical guide. Books like this tend to turn everything into a modular, concrete method so that anyone can follow the steps and get a result.
But as I said earlier, I believe “self-identity” is the hardest part because it is connected to a person’s values - how you see yourself and how you see the entire world. I do not think this can be fully generalized or modularized. It is an extremely personal matter.
The method for building identity mentioned in the book is not meaningless or useless. I simply think there is another side to shaping identity that has nothing to do with methods or techniques. Its influence is extremely powerful, and it is much harder to control or grasp.
That side is “life circumstance,” or what we might also call “fate.” This may be an even stronger force.
Why does identity have anything to do with circumstance and fate? To understand that, we need to start with the different levels of identity itself.
A person can hold many different identities at the same time, such as “a good father at home,” “a good student at school,” or “a good manager at work.” These are role positions in different settings.
But when we dig deeper into a person’s inner world, we find a special kind of identity. It no longer stays at the level of profession or role. It is closer to “my relationship with this world” and “what I came into this world wanting to accomplish.”
This is the highest level of identity, the one that shapes a person’s worldview. It determines the final direction of their choices when they face the many crossroads of life.
This is very close to the “Why” in the Golden Circle advocated by the well-known motivational speaker Simon Sinek - the most fundamental motivation and belief behind a person’s actions.
It can also be explained with the English word “calling.” In Chinese, it is often translated as “zhi ye,” a life vocation or calling.
I like the word calling very much. Personally, I understand it as a voice from deep within that keeps telling you that you must do a certain thing.
Rather than saying this voice comes from yourself or from a specific person, it feels more like some powerful existence higher than human beings. Of course, you do not have to interpret it through any specific religion. You can also understand it as a very strong inner recognition. In any case, it is an inner force you cannot ignore.
You feel a sense of mission and accept it from the heart, as if to say, “This is why I came into this world.”
And so, no matter how other people see you or what they say about you, you deeply believe the path ahead is the one you must walk. No matter how many obstacles there are, you will stand at the very front - even if millions oppose you, you will still go forward.
I personally love Japanese shonen manga, and one reason is that these works often contain profound portrayals of this kind of calling.
Whenever I see characters in a story stand up for their beliefs in those passionate scenes, I always feel as if my spirit has been washed clean.
One work with several scenes that left a deep impression on me is Zatch Bell! (Japanese title: Konjiki no Gash!!).
The protagonist, Gash, comes from the demon world. He was originally a very timid, crybaby boy. Along with ninety-nine other children from the demon world, he is sent to the human world for one purpose: to fight each other until only one survives and becomes the new king of the demon world.
Many of these children have neither the strength nor the will to fight, but they are still forced into this brutal battle for the throne and suffer greatly because of it. Gash is like that at first too. He always faces this cruel fate in tears.
At one point, a young girl says to him through tears, “If the demon world had a kind king, then there would never again be such painful battles…” From that moment on, “becoming a kind king” becomes the calling he vows to fulfill.
After that, whenever he faces battle, Gash no longer shrinks back in fear. No matter how powerful the enemy is, even when he is beaten bloody and covered in wounds, he still stands tall in front of his companions:
“I will become a kind king! Other than that, there is no king I want to be!”
Whenever I think back to this scene, I cannot help but think: “This is the highest level of identity.”
It has nothing to do with techniques or methods, and it is not learned through instruction. It is the accumulation of many events experienced in life. Then, through some turning point, it is carved deep into the heart and makes you keep telling yourself: “This is what I want.”
This is the embodiment of calling. It is like a summons from heaven, a belief accepted from the heart that can drive a person more powerfully than any ordinary motivation.
Another story that deeply portrays “calling” is a film that moved me greatly: Mr. Holland’s Opus. It tells the life story of a high school music teacher.
At the beginning, the protagonist has the temperament of a typical artist and has no passion for teaching at all. His original dream is to compose a symphony. Teaching is only a temporary way to make a living.
Everyone can see this, because in class he simply teaches by the book and does not seriously guide his students in practice.
But as time accumulates, many events gradually ignite his passion for teaching. Among them are several truly moving scenes.
With his help, a female student who has practiced clarinet for a long time without improvement and is about to give up music manages to play a beautiful melody of her own. She also rediscovers the joy and confidence of learning music.
He brings the most popular rock music of the time into the classroom, allowing mischievous students who originally had no interest in classical music to become willing to approach more refined art.
In this way, he teaches at that high school for decades and educates countless students. He no longer has the time or heart to care about the composition he once dreamed of. He only wants to teach. The teaching job he once saw as a transitional means has now become his lifelong calling.
On the day of his retirement, his students prepare a surprise farewell event for him. The clarinet student from years ago has become the mayor, and she personally attends and hosts the event. She says this line:
“We are your symphony, Mr. Holland.”
The dream he could not complete in his early years has now been fulfilled in another form he never expected, and perhaps its influence on the world is even deeper.
What this story taught me is that calling, this high-level identity, is not necessarily set from the very beginning. More likely, it gradually accumulates and forms through the many turns of life.
We can imagine that this must be an extremely personal process, one that cannot be standardized. Everyone’s starting point, personality, values, and especially life circumstances are different. Even the same event, when it happens to different people, may lead in different directions.
If another person walked the same road, they might not arrive at teaching. They might arrive at a different calling. But for that person, it could still be a positive choice.
Every person’s life is unique.
By the way, I also want to talk about my own experience of how changes in life circumstances affected my identity and calling.
In the past, I never thought about teaching Japanese to others. I always felt a strong resistance toward it, because at the time I believed I was not qualified to teach. After all, there are far too many people in this world whose Japanese is better than mine and who are better at teaching than I am.
But after my previous job ended because of the pandemic, whenever I looked back and reviewed that experience, I kept seeing one clear problem:
Most of the experience I had accumulated in the past could only exist by attaching itself to a specific company or system. The abilities or skills I could truly carry with me were far too few.
That became the turning point that sparked the thought in me.
I began taking inventory. What knowledge and skills did I have the chance to develop now, skills that would not be limited by a particular setting and could truly belong to me?
Later, I realized that “teaching” was one of them.
“Helping someone truly learn” is indeed a skill that can be trained, and it has a very broad range of applications. So why shouldn’t I try to master it in the next stage of my life?
Once I figured this out, I found an online teaching platform and registered as a Japanese tutor. I did not have many students, but over time I still accumulated some experience and reflections.
After I had been teaching for a while, I taught an elderly woman who became a regular student after one or two lessons. Before her contract with the platform expired, she said something to me that I still remember to this day:
“Teacher, you are a good teacher! Your explanations in class are so detailed. I have never met such a serious and dedicated teacher on this platform before.”
Since entering society, I have done many different kinds of work. But none of them has ever given me as great a sense of accomplishment as teaching.
From that point on, I began to feel: “Teaching” is something I still want to keep doing. Even if what I teach is not Japanese, it does not matter. I simply want to take the truths I understand and pass them, like a torch, into other people’s hands.
Perhaps this is my calling.
Calling is the highest level of identity. It does not and should not have a fixed method for being shaped, nor does it have a correct answer - because life does not have one either.
And rather than speaking of a “method” for shaping a calling, perhaps it is better to speak of a “direction of development.” I think there are two:
The first is to let the random events that happen in life - your circumstances - push you forward, and see where you eventually arrive.
The second is to actively interpret everything you have experienced and transform it into “the direction you want to move toward.”
David Goggins, the author of Can’t Hurt Me, is an example of this. His early childhood was tragic, but he used extraordinary willpower to reinterpret those experiences and temper his identity into that of “a warrior who masters his own mind and constantly surpasses his limits,” driving him to achieve extraordinary things.
But for this second direction to work, it must come one hundred percent from recognition within yourself. Any persuasion, coercion, or even criticism from outsiders will only backfire. After all, only what grows out of the self can truly be called identity, and can truly be called a calling.
The highest level of self-identity is equivalent to answering the great life question: “Who am I?” It is a long process of dialogue with your own inner world.
The answer to this question is slowly adjusted and shaped through the constant collision between life’s choices and the randomness of the world.
Sometimes, the world pushes you from behind. Other times, unwilling to drift with the current, you force yourself to step toward the direction you want to go. These two situations alternate again and again, carrying people toward different distant places.
May you, when you finally arrive there, become “the self you recognize from the bottom of your heart.”
