When Your Identity Anchor Breaks
I was in professional baseball for parts of four seasons. I worked to make it there for over 18 years of my life.
My identity was anchored in my performance, my stats, and my standing on the roster. This is a solid foundation when things are going right. The question I want to ask you today is — what happens when the thing you are anchoring your identity to doesn’t go right?
It may not be baseball for you. It might be a relationship, a sport, a job title, finances — you fill in the blank. Whether you are a student trying to figure out who you are beyond your GPA, a student-athlete whose identity lives and dies with your performance, a corporate professional whose worth is wrapped up in your title and output, or someone in your faith community walking through a season where everything you built your life on feels shaky — this question is for you. Everyone has an identity anchor. And for most of us, that anchor is sitting on sand.
For me, my identity anchor crumbled when I got to the top of my game.
I was drafted by the Seattle Mariners in the 2015 MLB Draft — one of the best days of my life. For me it was an opportunity to become everything I ever wanted. I would be lying to you if I told you I was the best, or that it was going to be an easy road. That just isn’t true. I had a lot of potential, but I was an up-and-down player throughout college. Today I understand why my performance was so inconsistent: my identity was built on the wrong foundation.
Today I understand why my performance was so inconsistent — my identity was built on the wrong foundation.
In the Good Word it talks about how we need to build our houses on the rock, not the sand. I believe at some point we all try to build our life on shifting sand and call it good — either because times are good and the sand seems secure, or we just don’t know any better. Even sand can seem secure if it is compacted enough by water and waves. Think about it: people run on the beach all the time. The closer you are to the water, the more compacted the sand is. But throughout the day, as the waves pull back, the sand that was once secure becomes shaky.
For me, I thought I had built my life on a firm foundation because “my sand was compacted.” But eventually I came to a pivotal moment where the waves started to pull out, and my firm foundation became shaky overnight.
The Moment Everything Started to Shift
I was 22 years old, living my dream with the Seattle Mariners organization — three days away from breaking spring training camp and heading off to play for a minor league team in Iowa. I threw a pitch and felt a burning sensation run down my elbow. I called the trainers out, and I was done.
I remember seeing my parents’ faces — white as a ghost — up against that chain-link fence on the back fields of the Peoria Sports Complex. I walked to the clubhouse, got my elbow checked out, and was about to embark on a recovery journey I never planned for.
At this point I was pretty broken, and honestly afraid. When the only way you know how to pick up the pieces of a broken heart is through performance — what do you do when you can’t perform? This is the athlete identity crisis that nobody talks about in the locker room. And honestly, it isn’t just athletes. It’s the corporate professional who gets passed over for the promotion. It’s the student who fails the exam they staked everything on. It’s the person of faith who prayed for healing and didn’t get the answer they expected. We all face a moment when the thing we built our identity on gets taken away. I know that everything happens for a reason, because what happens next in my story is truly divine.
One night after I got hurt, I decided to meet some friends out — and in walked my angel. Her name was Kailee, and she was forever going to change my life. She met me at my lowest: injured and afraid of the future. I remember one of our first dates, a hike overlooking all of Phoenix. About midway through, she grabbed my hand and said, “You know you are more than the game, right? You know you are more than baseball, right?”
It was at this moment that everything started to shift. Kailee met me in a dark place and exposed me to the light — the light I possessed the whole time inside of me, covered up by my performance on the field.
“I want to remind someone right now reading this: even in dark places, there is still light. The tunnel has to end. The tunnel has to open up on the other side.”
There is always good to come from our dark seasons of life. I am living proof of this. Had I never gotten injured, I never would have met Kailee — my wife of 7 years now. We have 3 kids together and have built something beautiful, truly ordained from heaven. I don’t know what is on the other side of your pain, but I know that through our struggles and trials we are being perfected and strengthened — becoming someone capable of helping others in the future.
What the Dark Season Taught Me About Self-Worth and Purpose
I wish I could tell you things got easier after meeting Kailee, but that just wouldn’t be true. I ended up having Tommy John surgery, stress fractures, loose fragmented bones, stem cell injections, and PRP injections over the next three seasons. Every time I got close to getting healthy, I would get hurt again — and again. It was a difficult season. I felt my dream slowly slipping away and out of my grasp. Each injury was a reminder of how fragile my identity was.
Truth be told, anything in life we try to anchor our identity to that isn’t our own inherent worth and value is going to be fragile. For me personally, rebuilding started with my relationship with God. I know I am His child and creation. I was loved before I did anything — just like you. The odds of any of us even being born are 4 billion to 1. 4 billion to 1. Those are staggering odds — and you beat them. If you don’t think you are supposed to be here, you are flat wrong. You’ve been listening to the wrong voice. Your life has meaning and purpose, even if you can’t see your next step yet.
3 Steps to Build an Identity That Can’t Be Taken From You
So how do we live from this new identity anchor? Here are 3 steps I share with students, student-athletes, corporate teams, and faith-based communities everywhere I speak:
1. Separate Your Soul From Your Stat Sheet
Your soul — or “psuche” in Greek — is your inner being, your inner person. That is where your value stems from, not your stat sheet. Your stat sheet in life is anything you can measure or compare: your circumstances, job title, work, finances, gifts, calling, how you grew up, current performance in any area of life.
Most of the time we anchor our identity to one of those stat-sheet metrics and become that thing. We formulate an entire identity around it. For a student-athlete, it’s your batting average or your 40 time. For a student, it’s your GPA or your social standing. For someone on a corporate team, it’s your sales number or your performance review. For someone in a faith community, it might even be your service record or ministry output. We need to be conscious of this and separate our soul — our inherent value — from our stat sheet. You are more than a student, teacher, athlete, employee, or teammate. You are already enough, and already worthy, beyond your stat sheet.
2. Operate FROM Worth and Value, Not FOR Worth and Value
You aren’t more valuable if you get more done, create more, make more, or do more than others or what you did yesterday. That makes you more productive — not more valuable as a person. We must remind ourselves daily that we already have value, and we can operate from that sense of self-worth today, in this moment.
I don’t need to add anything else to my life or accomplish anything to live from this heart posture of worth and value. This is a radical mental shift — but it is the most productive thing you can do for yourself, the people around you, and your results. Yes, your results. When you aren’t attached to the outcome for your sense of worth, you can actually fail more freely and make better decisions. Because now setbacks don’t define me — they refine me.
3. Pour Into Your Worth Outside of Your Work — and Understand the Power of Your Subconscious Mind
Every single day you have to find time to remind yourself of your value. Whether that is through journaling, affirmations, prayer, or intentional mental reminders — at some point this becomes second nature, and your subconscious programming resets to this new default.
Over and over again throughout our lives we compare, put ourselves down, and talk negatively to ourselves. All of those small acts add up in a major way — so we must combat years of negativity with positivity overload. And here is where it gets fascinating: the cool thing about your subconscious mind is that it does not know the difference between reality and your thoughts.
This is where the real power comes from in reprogramming your mind. What you consistently put into your mind, your subconscious will begin to believe as truth and act on. This is also a catch-22, because the flip side is equally true. If we pour negativity in — or simply allow negativity to go unchallenged — our subconscious mind will go to work on those thoughts instead of the positive ones.
Your subconscious mind is constantly scanning the world around you, looking for evidence that confirms what you are feeding it. Here is a simple example: I am married to Kailee. If I am constantly speaking negatively about her in my head, I am going to find evidence of those thoughts in my daily reality — because that is what I am seeking. My mind is filtering for the negative and surfacing it. However, if I intentionally think positively about her, I will naturally begin to notice all of the great things about her day in and day out. The same data is available either way — my subconscious just determines which data I see.
This is true for how you see yourself, too. If your internal narrative is “I’m not good enough,” your subconscious will find evidence for that belief everywhere you look. Flip the script — start telling yourself daily that you are enough, that you were made on purpose, that your value is not tied to your performance — and over time, your subconscious will start finding evidence for that truth instead.
You have more power than you think. And it starts with what you pour into your mind each and every day.
Bring This Message to Your School, Team, or Organization
This is the message I bring as a motivational speaker to students, student-athletes, corporate teams, and faith-based communities across the country. I have had the privilege of speaking to thousands of students and have worked with teams in the SEC, Big 12, and Big Ten, as well as corporations and ministries nationwide — on identity, mental health for athletes, self-worth beyond performance, and perseverance.
If you are a coach, athletic director, school administrator, corporate leader, or ministry leader looking for a speaker who can connect with your audience on a genuine, life-changing level — I would love to serve you.
Reach out at info@lancethonvold.com and let’s talk about how I can impact your school, team, organization, or ministry.
