Who am I?

The Stories We Inherit (and Rewrite)

For years, I believed I was hot-headed. It was a truth repeated often enough by teachers, old friends, and even some family that I didn’t think to question it. I would preface apologies with, “You know me, I’ve always had a temper,” or excuse a snap reaction with, “That’s just how I’ve always been.”

But then, one day, my husband said something simple: “You’re not hot-headed, you rarely fall out with people or argue with anybody, what’s that about?” A childhood friend from when I was primary school age echoed it when she said, “I would never think of you as bad-tempered, I’ve never seen that in you”. And suddenly, something cracked open. What if the story I’d been carrying wasn’t true anymore, or maybe never had been?

Labels stick if we allow them

It’s funny how certain labels, once attached to us, have a way of clinging on, long after they’ve stopped being accurate, long after we’ve grown beyond them. If you asked people from when I was younger if I had a temper, they’d probably say yes without much hesitation. But here’s the thing: if you asked them to back that up with examples, the vast majority would be from before I was 25. I’m 47 now.

This reputation started to take root in my teens, a time when, like most adolescents, my hormones were in overdrive, my identity was still forming, and I was navigating a lot of internal and external chaos. I was outspoken. I didn’t shy away from confrontation. I pushed back when I felt unheard or misunderstood. I challenged things that didn’t seem fair. And yes, sometimes my emotions boiled over. But what’s often overlooked is that much of that so-called “temper” was really just frustration, anxiety, or passion that I hadn’t yet learned how to channel.

Yet the story stuck. Once seen a certain way, you’re always a certain way, apparently.

It’s remarkable and a little unsettling how powerful these early labels can be. When we’re young, the way others describe us can become the blueprint for how we see ourselves. We internalise these identities: the shy one, the dramatic one, the angry one. They become part of the lens through which we interpret our behavior. Sometimes, we even act in alignment with them, not because they’re true, but because they’re familiar.

These stories are sticky. And when they go unchallenged, they solidify.

It wasn’t until I began to receive honest reflections from people I trust, friends, colleagues, even my own child, that I started to see myself differently. I’m empathetic, thoughtful, I’ll stand up for the underdog, I like people to be treated fairly, but I won’t let people treat me badly, and I won’t always say what people might want to hear. As one friend always says to me, “If you want a bullshit answer, ask a bullshit friend; if you want the truth, ask Becky,” and there lies the crux of the problem. When I was on my coaching course, I realised that as an adult, the main times people would say I have lost my temper or feel I am unreasonable is when I have disagreed with something somebody has said or done, and they wanted a yes person, or I have put in a boundary that they don’t like. Realising this was jarring at first. It didn’t align with the story I’d been told, or the one I’d kept telling myself. But it forced me to confront an uncomfortable truth: maybe the version of me I had accepted wasn’t accurate anymore, maybe it never was.

That’s the thing about stories told about us, they’re often snapshots, not full pictures. They reflect a moment, a mood, a developmental stage. But when we accept them as permanent truths, we stop evolving. We live inside someone else’s narrative rather than writing our own.

I’ve learned that part of growing older, and hopefully wiser, is learning to sift through those old stories and decide which ones still serve us. Some do. Others need to be rewritten or let go. I’m not pretending I never get frustrated or emotional. But I no longer believe that makes me “bad-tempered” or “hot-headed.” I believe it makes me human.

So yes, if someone insists I have a temper, I might ask them to tell me the last time they saw it. And if they have to flip back to a mental photo album from 1998, maybe it’s time we both agreed to close that chapter and start a new one. On a podcast I was listening to recently, the presenter said a line she uses is “We’re not telling that story about me anymore,” and I have to agree.

What labels have you been stuck with that no longer ring true?