Why Having an Alter Ego Helps us Meet Our Goals
The Alter Egos of Bruce Wayne, Beyonce, Jay B, Young K, Mino, Chanyeol; Young K's Eternal Solo Debut; Howl's Moving Castle; Gary Vee's advice to 25-year olds; Normal Days to Transition to Kuching
We all have a favorite superhero movie—My favorite one growing up was The Dark Knight Trilogy.
And whether your favorite superhero/superheroine was Spiderman, Batman, or Wonder Woman, they all share one similarity: their superhero identity is their alter egos.
Eg: Superman to Clark Kent; Wonder Woman to Diana; and Batman to Bruce Wayne.
Alright, perhaps fictional superheroes are hard to relate to. But besides fictional superheroes, pop artists also have several alter-egos and create different pseudo-personas that separates them from their normal, regular self. Eg: Beyonce has Sasha Fierce.
So that brings me to my topic today, alter egos. Why do influential people have them, and what appealed these successful figures to have alter egos?
What is alter ego?
According to Merriam Webster dictionary, alter ego is "a second self or different version of oneself"
Alter-egos are different personas that separate one from their normal, regular, ego-self.
Why do we pursue and have alter egos?
1. It empowers you and lets you step out of your comfort zone
We all have weaknesses where we feel vulnerable. What's scary to you as your own self, may not be scary to your alter ego.
New goals, for one, can be scary!
But, with an alter ego, you are more motivated to take on challenging tasks that may be different from the tasks your real persona would normally take on. It will give you a sense of confidence you didn't yet have at the initial stages of pursuing goals.
Beyonce’s alter ego, Sasha Fierce is one who she claims to be fun and aggressive, different from her normal persona that is usually shy. According to her, having Sasha as her alter ego helped her muster the courage to be confident performing on stage, and at the same time retain her ladylike qualities of being reserved as Beyonce Knowles.
P/s: this song is cool
2. It gives you the distance from your regular, ego-self
An alter ego can give you the possibility of becoming the person you wish to be, one you think is beyond the bounds of your regular, ego-self. Not saying that having an alter ego automatically makes it the fake version of you...
A different way to see alter ego from this Elle article: "The alter ego isn't who you wish you could be, but a distilled version of who you already are."
They both are real sides of you.
We all have sides of us that are reluctant and uncomfortable with exploring unconventional ideas.
This may be stemmed from ‘fearful thoughts’ like...
"What would people think?"
"What if I look stupid?"
"What if I fail?"
But we also have sides that are curious about wanting to explore these unconventional ideas.
Switching characters into your alter ego, a separate entity, allows you to social-distance from your ego-self that is full of doubtful 'immediate feelings' that can get in the way. They also let you overcome frustrations and avoid feeling dispirited when you are learning to do something new.
Alter egos give you healthy boundaries to the values, qualities, or ideas your regular self would like to keep intact. Refer back — Beyonce’s ladylike and reserved qualities, different from Sasha’s fierceness.
Plus, your alter ego wouldn’t have to deal with the occasional internal dilemma, wouldn’t make decisions out of emotional outbursts, or putting yourself in situations of risk, which can cause many to quit their goals.
Examples:
Jay B uses different pseudonyms to signify his various works in different music genres & niches.
During his GOT7 (mainstream K-pop music) days, He was called JB.
As a soloist, he changed to Jay B.
Since his GOT7 days, he was already active under the alias defsoul (K-R&B) in Soundcloud for K-R&B music.
All his music variations—JB, Jay B, JJ project (duo with Jinyoung), def, and also a part of offshore crew— focus on different spectrums. And their existences are all necessary, for him to give his best to various musically-inclined alter egos without feeling conflicted at some point.
Young K of DAY6 — who gets memed at how much he disliked it when people called him Brian—prefers to be called Young K on stage, and in the entertainment world. To him, Brian Kang is the name for himself when he's in Canada.
We all have that— a name to be known professionally, and a name only our childhood friends/families are familiar with.
Winner's Mino is known by his stage name Mino when singing. But as a man who is also passionate about painting, he chooses to credit his painting artworks under the alias Ohnim.
Different pseudonyms for different areas of specialization that are totally different from one another
EXO’s Chanyeol, when it comes to singing, he is Chanyeol. But music production works, he's LOEY. Although in the same industry, he comes by two different pseudonyms to signify the different line of work.
3. You get the ‘freedom’ you wish
Freedom is rather subjective to different people.
Artists or not, superhero or not, to a certain degree, the desire to live a normal life is there at times.
With alter egos or pseudo-personas, you get to design your life revolving around a certain level of 'freedom', a freedom that doesn't tie you to one another.
Let’s look at Wizard Howl from Howl's Moving Castle. He comes by many names, Howl to the wizardry folks; Pendragon and Jenkins to the different kingdoms he served/consulted.
In a conversation between Howl and Sophie after Howl’s hair tantrum episode:
“The king asks me to report to him, as Pendragon and Jenkins,” Howl said.
“How many names do you use?” Sophie asked.
“Enough to guarantee my freedom.”
Boy if he introduced himself as "Howl" to every kingdom, he would have a lot at stake to lose!
Incorporating pseudo-personas feel “freeing” for one to explore controversial and personal topics through a new lens, without putting risks to our real-self, or professional-self.
Alter egos give you healthy boundaries to focus on the bigger picture = long-term vision
Sometimes we get too dwelled on small setbacks like shame and feeling disapproved by immediate circles in life. To counter these feelings of helplessness, alter ego can be a powerful tool, giving us that clear boundary needed to help focus better on the bigger picture of the goal instead.
Having a healthy boundary lets you perform better, as it separates what is meant for your real-life self (your ego); and what is meant for your alternate entity (your alter ego).
💬 Think of the times when your primary messaging channel becomes both personal and work communication medium? That lack of boundary, did it help to focus on your work/personal relationships or did it induce more anxieties?
Alter egos can help you niche down into something that is totally not your ego self would think of doing
Do you know that talk on 'niching’ that people speak off as a necessity to speed up success in doing whatever you pursue?
Another way of niching down is through creating an alter ego: a nickname.
If you have been ruminating on starting something (totally different from what you’re used to) for the longest time, now is the time to create it, maybe with an alter ego so you can take on the risk seriously!
At the end of the day, if your alter ego fails, you always have your ego self to fall back to. And it won’t be too frustrating enough.
If it succeeds, maybe one day, you’ll embrace your alter ego and grow fully into that confident person you desired your ego self to be. We all have multiple sides that are different from each other—some we may haven’t even shown to the world. They are all, extensions of our multi-layered personality.
Do you have an alter ego? What does that alter ego do that is completely different to who your real self is? Share with me with #thefarinsights
Current obsessions
Thanks to our MYDAY president Seungmin, I am now obsessed with:
Young K’s Eternal album. Especially Guard You, Microphone, best song.
DAY6’s Right Through Me
Non-related to Seungmin's vouch on DAY6:
GOT7's 1degree
Han’s TikTok (this is a mood); Han as Howl; another WOW animation & Just another day at SKZ’s dorm (the inside jokes here are spot on);
Serious things
Jack Ma’s advice to all ages in life.
If you think you're in your mid-20s and feel pressured to achieve a set of success or else life is over, please, I beg you, stop that mindset. You can always start over, from zero, at 25 by Gary Vee.
The comments in this video grounded me, as most of them said the same message: that “you have so much time ahead of you.”
"Mother knows you don't have to be unkind to someone in order to exploit them," from Howl's Moving Castle book.
Recently finished
Howl’s Moving Castle film
I had no idea that the OST I was looking for all these years was in this film! & I feel so mad for only watching this masterpiece now, after having seen one of my classmates presented this in film school. Some things you really take for granted.
Just curious what would my younger self be reacting like if I watched it at that age...
Young K’s solo debut interview. & finally, now I know what does toplining means, and vocal chops from Daebak show ~and what do you mean he's enlisting next month?🤧~
Elsewhere
Do you guys get anxious when you hear your notification sounds? I do. Like a jolt within me. ⚡️
Some testimonials on The Far Insights. Thank you! 🙏🏼
& Behind-the-scenes from last week’s letter on Anger, Rage, and Nagging:
From Kitty City
And that concludes our national day month! Things are coming back to normal now, as our transition to endemic days is nearing, and Sarawak, of course not missing out to be the next tourism bubble after Langkawi.
& REJOICE to no more quarantine for fully-vaxxed to enter Kuching!
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