On self-image, identity, and the quiet question we so rarely ask ourselves out loud — grounded in what science knows about it, and with a small piece of my own story.
On a table stands a mirror. In front of the mirror stands a chess piece: a Pawn. Small, plain, nothing special at all. But in the mirror you see something else. There stands a King. Stately. Full. Unmoving.
Beneath it, three words: You vs You.
I had to look at it for a long time before I understood why this image moved me so. And then I knew.
Not because I want to say: “be the King, not the Pawn.” Because life doesn’t work that way. We are all, on different days, both. Sometimes at once.
But because this image catches something that science can now tell us a great deal about: the picture you hold of yourself in your head shapes how you move through the world. Not as a miracle cure. Not as a substitute for help when help is needed. But as one of the quieter forces in a human life.
For anyone reading this on a hard day
Before I go on, I want to say this first. Because this kind of writing about identity — “who you really are,” “choose the King within you” — can sound, without meaning to, like a reproach to anyone who isn’t managing right now.
This piece is not that reproach.
If you are reading this whilst you are stuck, exhausted, in burnout, or trying to survive a depression: this piece does not say you should have been tougher. A body that can no longer carry on is not a weakness of character. It is the limit of what was physically possible, given everything that was pressing down on it.
The Pawn and the King are both you. At different moments, in different chapters. If today you are the Pawn — small, careful, half a step at a time — then that is exactly who you need to be today. What I write next is meant to sit beside you, not to judge you.
The science of self-image
In psychology there is a surprisingly powerful idea, first studied properly by the psychologist Hazel Markus at Stanford University in the 1980s. She called them possible selves: not who you are now, but who you believe you might become — or might lose.
Markus showed that people who hold a rich, concrete picture of a future self (the self-who-earns-her-diploma, the parent-who-is-there-for-her-child, the self-who-gets-through-this-month) behave differently from people for whom that future picture is empty or vague. The image works like a kind of compass: it directs attention, motivation, and the small daily choices.
Then there is the work of Albert Bandura, one of the most influential psychologists of the twentieth century. He described the idea of self-efficacy: the belief in your own ability to manage something. Decades of research have shown self-efficacy to be one of the stronger predictors of whether people persevere through setbacks, dare to ask for help, or master new skills.
Importantly, both Markus and Bandura stressed that this is not positive thinking. No affirmations in the mirror. No manifesting. It is something quieter: an inner picture that says yes, I can do this. Yes, I am also this person. Even if I don’t look much like it right now.
The philosopher William James wrote it long before modern psychology, back in 1890: act as if you already have the quality, and gradually something on the inside shifts. Not through self-deception, but through repeated, small, honest attempts.
And then there was Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist and survivor of four concentration camps. In his book Man’s Search for Meaning he wrote something that will always stand: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” Not a great freedom, always. Sometimes only a millimetre. But enough to set something in motion.
A small piece of my own story
I’m going to tell you something, but carefully. Not to make myself out to be big — that is precisely what this piece must not do — but because I think you might find something in it for yourself.
There was a period in my life that was hard. Very hard. I was following a training course in a language that was not my mother tongue. My second child was a few months old and woke every two hours through the night. My eldest was starting school. My baby went to nursery. And in between it all, I was trying to study, to pass exams, to function.
I still remember being allowed to ask, before the start of one exam: “may I have thirty minutes extra, because I sometimes find certain phrasings difficult?” The questions had things in them like “…does not make it improbable that…” — a double negative that had to be turned inside out four times in my head before I knew what the question was actually asking. The answer was: no, no extra time, only a dictionary.
Afterwards, I can laugh about it. At the time, I couldn’t.
I don’t tell this because I think I did it well. Many people I admire have come to a standstill in situations like this, their body saying: this far and no further. That is not failure. That is a limit. And I don’t know exactly why my limit wasn’t reached then. Perhaps luck. Perhaps a circumstance I can’t see. Perhaps simply: it was this period, not another.
What I do know: somewhere inside, through those months, I carried a quiet picture. Not of success, not of a diploma, not of a career. The picture was small and concrete. It was two boys hanging their little rucksacks by the door. A voice in my head that said: they didn’t ask to come into this world. But now they are here. And so today I walk into that school.
The whole of that time, I felt like a Pawn. And at the same time I walked through life as a King.
Not because I was one. But because that picture — the mother who is there, however shakily — held me upright on the days when the Pawn-version of me could barely stand.
What this image really says
The mirror in the picture is not a command saying: become the King, stop being the Pawn.
The mirror is something far gentler. It says: you are not only who you were at your weakest moment. You are also the one you have already glimpsed in your best moments. Both are real. Both are you.
Research into resilience and recovery shows the same thing again and again: people who come through hard times rarely do it by driving themselves harder. They do it by holding on, throughout the hard stretch, to one inner fragment of themselves — a role, a responsibility, a memory of someone counting on them, a future they once wanted to see. Not everything at once. But one thread. One image in the mirror that keeps standing, even when the rest disappears into fog.
And if that thread isn’t there for you just now — if the King in the mirror seems too far away today — then that is what others can do for you. A friend, a carer, a GP, a family member. They hold the picture for a while, until you can reach it again.
That is not weakness. That is how human beings are built.
A question to carry with you
Not the question “how do I become the King?” — you know that one already; there are a thousand books about it.
But this one, softer:
Which picture of yourself — however small, however shaky — has carried you through a time you no longer thought you’d get through? And is that picture still there today?
Related reading
- Why One No Erases Your Yeses
- People Never Forget How You Made Them Feel
- You Are What You Repeatedly Do
Sources
- Markus, H., & Nurius, P. (1986). Possible Selves. American Psychologist, 41(9), 954–969. (DOI) Classic paper on self-concept and the future self.
- Bandura, A. (1997). Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. W.H. Freeman. The standard work on self-efficacy.
- James, W. (1890). The Principles of Psychology. Contains the “as if” principle of acting-as-though.
- Frankl, V. E. (1946 / 2006). Man’s Search for Meaning. Beacon Press. Note: the widely quoted “space between stimulus and response” line is often attributed to Frankl but cannot be traced to his work; we therefore quote his documented words on the freedom to choose one’s attitude.
- Southwick, S. M., & Charney, D. S. (2018). Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges. Cambridge University Press. Overview of resilience research.
Disclaimer: This article is about psychological research into self-image, identity and resilience. It is not medical or psychological advice, and certainly not a substitute for professional help. If you recognise in yourself prolonged exhaustion, low mood, sleeplessness, or the feeling that you can’t go on — please contact your GP or specialist. Asking for help does not contradict this article. It is the King-in-you saying: I will not leave the Pawn on its own now.
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