What false stories have you been telling yourself?

I've been thinking a lot lately about the past, as so many of us do at the end of the year. And for me, that always means revisiting my childhood. 

I did not have a traumatic childhood--far from it.  I was surrounded by family who loved and supported me while also helping me develop a work ethic and strive to learn and grow (read: I had to do chores). But we all tended to apply labels to each other--the smart one, the pretty one, the talented one, the budding criminal--and I think that's probably pretty normal in a family. It's unfortunate, though, because it limits our imagination about ourselves from an early age. Even worse, it sets a certain script into motion.

We might learn these labels from family, or we might learn them at school, from teachers or peers. We might even just come up with them ourselves in order to make sense of our realities (though I don't think so; I think the adults on our lives get us started on this way of thinking before we're capable of it on our own). 

Growing up, I "knew" that I was a hard worker, smart at certain things (humanities), and funny. I was not pretty, naturally talented, athletically capable, or good at STEM subjects. There were some advantages to these labels; I always felt confident in history and English classes, and I learned to use humor as a social lubricant and coping mechanism, which is still helpful to this day. Because I felt I had to work hard at flute (I was not always automatically first chair and had some failures early on), and I got really obsessed with it, I worked very hard at it. But I also went through a period of time in which I gave it up as anything but a hobby, so convinced was I that I couldn't succeed in that profession, and as a result I lost some developmental time and probably chose less musically rigorous programs for study. And as a doctoral student at a Big Name (TM) school, I suffered a severe bout of impostor syndrome without understanding what was happening to me or knowing that term, which I am certain curtailed some of my professional development and networking. 

Being told I wasn't athletic meant that I avoided athletic activity for years, robbing myself of some amount of physical and mental health.  Fortunately, moving to the Rockies in my late 20s allowed me to experience physical activity for personal joy for the first time in my life, and my life is certainly much happier (and my joints less achy) for it. 

You get the picture. So, my question for you, dear reader, as we enter 2024: what labels have been shackling you? What descriptions of yourself would you like to shed this year? And for those of us who serve as mentors, what labels have we been imposing on our charges? What family / social / professional lore has been holding us all back?