Agency: The Architecture of Becoming One’s Self
There is a quiet turning point in every human life. It does not arrive with fireworks. It arrives with a sentence. “I need…” or “I want…” or “I can’t keep doing this.”
That sentence is called, agency.
Long before people become self-actualized, socially integrated, or “mindful,” they first activate. They push back internally. They refuse stagnation. They just begin. From that ignition point, three forms of self-emerge:
Tier One: Self Advocacy — The Activation of Agency
Language: “I need.” “I want.”
Function: Motion.
Self advocacy is not yet insight. It is ignition. Pierre Bourdieu argued that human behavior is shaped by habitus—deeply embodied dispositions formed through social life (Bourdieu, 1977). Theodore Schatzki emphasized that human activity unfolds in organized “practices,” which quietly structure what feels normal, reasonable, or even imaginable (Schatzki, 1996). Self advocacy is the moment someone interrupts what felt inevitable. It can sound ordinary:
But in theory terms, that “ordinary” sentence is dramatic a statement. It’s agency asserting itself inside a world that has been shaping you the whole time—your declaration of independence, so to speak. This is also where Anthony Giddens matters. Structuration theory argues that structure and agency are recursive, and people reproduce social systems through everyday action (Giddens, 1979; Giddens, 1984). Those systems are also shaped by what people do. Self advocacy is the first stage because it is the first measurable moment of counter-momentum. Without activation, nothing moves.
Tier Two: Self Awareness — The Differentiation of Self
Language: “I am… but.”
Function: Reflection.
After activation comes observation. Shelley Duval and Robert Wicklund described objective self-awareness as the shift where attention turns inward and people compare their current self to a standard, value, or expectation (1972). This comparison often creates discomfort. And that discomfort—when handled well—becomes fuel.
Max Weber’s interpretive sociology helps explain why this stage is so psychologically charged. He explains that humans are meaning-makers, not just behavior-makers (Weber, 1978). People do not simply experience life—they interpret it.
Self awareness is where identity fractures productively:
This stage can feel like instability, but it is actually differentiation. You are noticing the parts of yourself that were previously fused together. Here is where you, the individual, becomes both subject and observer.
Tier Three: Self Actualization — The Integration of Self
Language: “I know I am.”
Function: Coherence.
Maslow described self-actualization as the realization of potential and the fuller expression of the self (Maslow, 1943). But actualization is not perfection, moreso it is integration. It is the removal of the defensive “but” slipping out of our mouths.
Affirm your inner voice: “I know I am strong.”
Contemporary mindfulness research supports this shift. The “mindful self” is an orientation toward selfhood that brings awareness and compassion without rigid attachment to a fixed identity (Xiao, Yue, He, and Yu, 2017). In Buddhist traditions reaching back to the Pali Canon, mindfulness, often described as sati, cultivates present-centered awareness that reduces fragmentation and reactivity. Integration is not ego. Rather is it is coherence. You no longer split yourself to survive. You evolve without abandoning who you are.
Agency Within Structure
Who we are as human beings and how we understand our selves is crucial to our growth. The three foundations of what build our ultimate self, elevate us in a world convoluted by social media and people on TV telling us who we could be, should be, want to be—influencing and/or shaming us for needing to be our own individual selves. This model proposes something outside of the mundane and norm.
This model is simple on purpose, but it is not simplistic in nature. It sits at the intersection of several major frameworks:
So the triadic model of self is not just motivational. It is structural:
Advocacy activates agency within structure. ® Awareness interprets and differentiates identity. ® Actualization integrates identity into coherent presence.
Becoming Is A Spiral
Practical Application: A Three-Question Self-Check
ü Where am I saying “I need…” but not acting?
ü Where am I saying “I am… but…” and avoiding integration?
ü Where can I replace “but” with clarity?
Growth is not mystical. It is organized and it begins at the bottom with motion.
Agency is not a one-time event. You advocate. You become aware. You integrate. Then, life changes and the cycle begins again. Growth is not a ladder you climb once. Instead it is a spiral. Are you ready to climb the mountain of self growth?
References
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice (R. Nice, Trans.). Cambridge University Press.
Duval, S., & Wicklund, R. A. (1972). A theory of objective self-awareness. Academic Press.
Giddens, A. (1979). Central problems in social theory: Action, structure and contradiction in social analysis. University of California Press.
Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. University of California Press.
Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370–396. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054346
Schatzki, T. R. (1996). Social practices: A Wittgensteinian approach to human activity and the social. Cambridge University Press.
Weber, M. (1978). Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology (G. Roth & C. Wittich, Eds.). University of California Press. (Original work published 1922)
Xiao, Q., Yue, C., He, W., & Yu, J. Y. (2017). The mindful self: A mindfulness-enlightened self-view. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, Article 1752. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01752
