The Fortitude Chronicle: A Weekly Digest of Athletic Determination

Monday Momentum

For the Relentless Mind

The Roles We Play, The Selves We Lose

There’s a moment, often early in life, when you realize the world doesn’t love you for who you are—it loves you for the role you play. Maybe it’s the high-achieving student, the reliable friend, the star athlete, or the agreeable child. The applause feels good, but it’s not for you—it’s for the mask you’ve learned to wear.

Over time, this applause becomes a kind of currency. You trade authenticity for acceptance, intuition for instruction. The message seeps in quietly but relentlessly: You’re not enough unless you’re performing. The more you’re rewarded for the act, the harder it becomes to remember who you were before the script was handed to you.

Most of us never stop to ask the questions that matter:

• Who am I, really?

• What do I need?

• What do I want?

Instead, we let the people around us—family, friends, coworkers, even strangers on social media—shape the answers for us. Their preferences become our priorities. Their approval becomes our compass. We become characters in a story written by someone else, our true selves edited out in favor of what sells.

The brain’s reward system lights up for social approval, often stronger than for personal satisfaction. This is why the pressure to fit in can feel overwhelming, suffocating even the smallest sparks of individuality.

Here’s the truth no one tells you: Identity isn’t a label you wear—it’s a lifestyle you live. It’s not enough to dabble in authenticity when it’s convenient. You have to be fully invested in who you are or who you want to become. Anything less, and the world will fill the vacuum for you.

• If you don’t define your boundaries, others will cross them.

• If you don’t clarify your values, others will sell you theirs.

• If you don’t choose your path, you’ll end up on someone else’s.

Living your identity is an act of rebellion in a world that profits from your conformity. It’s a commitment to self-authorship, even when the applause is louder for the character than the creator.

When you outsource your identity, you pay in silent frustration and quiet regret. You wake up one day and realize you’ve built a life that looks good from the outside but feels hollow within. The roles you play become cages, and the applause becomes noise you can’t escape.

But the cost of reclaiming your story? Discomfort. Awkward conversations. The risk of disappointing people who loved the act but never knew the actor.

You have to be all-in on yourself. Ask the hard questions. Sit with the uncomfortable answers. Build a lifestyle that reflects your truest self, not just the self that’s easiest to applaud.

Because if you don’t, someone else will write your story—and you’ll spend your life performing in a play you never auditioned for.

The world doesn’t need another actor. It needs your original script.

Two Quotes

1. "Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever."- Lance Armstrong

2. "People see the medals, the trophies, the celebrations. What they don’t see are the early mornings, the injuries, the doubts, the sacrifices. Success is built on the days when you want to quit but choose to keep going, on the belief that every drop of sweat is worth it."– Alex Morgan

Three Posts

To Building Fortitude.

 Best Regards,

Colin Jonov, Founder & CEO Athletic Fortitude