Previously, we spoke about Goal Setting for the New Year. We discussed the importance of firstly feeling gratitude for all that you’ve accomplished last year before tackling this year, as well as how to generate the feeling that you need in order to create truly empowering Goals.
Today, I want to talk about something else which is really important which can make or break your Goals. That is your sense of Identity. Having the right sense of Identity can help to really power your transition into the awesome new person that you can become. However, the wrong sense of Identity can keep you stuck in the past in an ongoing vicious circle.
What I mean by Identity is really how you see yourself. Who you really believe you are at your core. And as Tony Robbins says, Identity is something that you will do anything to be consistent with! If you start to see yourself as being a “new person” then your sense of Identity will compel you to be consistent with that belief. If, however, you see yourself as still being the person that you were last year, then despite your best intentions, your sense of Identity will keep you locked in to that old pattern of behaviour because your subconscious won’t allow you to be inconsistent with your belief.
Let me give you a practical example of how this works in reality. I’ll use myself as an example. Years ago, I used to do what most people do at New Years and set a Goal to lose weight and be healthier. So I would set the Goal and I’d be so keen to follow through that I would tell all my work colleagues that from now on, I’m going to eat healthy at lunch, I’m going to go to the gym and so forth.
Then what happened is that I started out pretty well for the first few days, then by around the second week, I’d have a moment of weakness and I’d end up having something like KFC for lunch. Instantly, everyone around would be nagging me with things like, oh what happened to your new diet? This is a critical moment, as to how you respond mentally to this. To start with, I did what most people do and buckled. I started to feel embarrassed that I’d made this “Declaration” that I’m going to be healthy and now I’m letting myself down by having junk food.
As Tony Robbins says, it’s just a normal human reaction that we want to be consistent with our sense of Identity. Once people started picking up on the fact that I wasn’t being consistent with what I had said I was going to do, I started to FEEL like I was kind of a bit of a fraud by not following through on my commitments. In essence, I felt inconsistent with my Identity.
Because we as people don’t want to be inconsistent with our Identity, I instantly started to make up excuses by saying things like, oh well I wasn’t really going to be healthy, or I’d make a joke out of it by saying something like, oh yeah well I’m going to start my new diet “for real” next week.
This created within me, the Identity that I was the sort of person who wasn’t able to commit to a diet. I was then subconsciously compelled to stay true to that Identity. But what took me a long time to discover is that it’s just as easy to cultivate a positive sense of Identity which actually empowered me to stay true to my Goals.
All it takes is to constantly re-inforce the positive things that you do. One thing that I’m always telling my clients is that it’s vitally important to give yourself credit for doing things “approximately right”. So when I would have a “perfect” day, when I ate right, drank plenty of water and exercised, I would give myself credit for that. Every time I gave myself credit for doing the right thing, I was programming my subconscious mind that this is now my Identity. This is who I am. I am the sort of person who is fit and healthy. I programmed myself that I was a fit and healthy person, that became my Identity, and in turn, my subconscious mind would keep me consistent with that identity.
At times when I had a blow out and did the wrong thing, I would once again grab onto the positives. When you’re starting out on a new Goal such as fitness for example, it’s quite common that you’re not going to get everything 100% right all the time. But you can get things “approximately right” most of the time. Being my old self, I would beat myself up about the things I did wrong instead of focusing on all the things I did right.
Once I learned to change this, everything changed for me. I would have a day where I had an iced doughnut for morning tea and KFC for lunch! But you know what, I also achieved my fitness Goals for the day! So at the end of the day, I completely put all the stuff I ate out of my mind and instead I would recall the time I spent walking and exercising. I closed my eyes and visualised myself actually physically walking and I thought, you know what, I’m pretty healthy. As I did this, it was engraving into my subconscious a new Identity. I am a fit and healthy person!
Vice-versa, there were times when I didn’t do much physical exercise, but I ate right. Again I would forget about the inactivity and focus on what I was eating. And my subconscious mind would say to me, hey Neill that was a really healthy meal. You’re a really fit and healthy person. As I continued to do this, my Identity REALLY DID change!
And that’s just an example of making a change to be fit and healthy. You can use this technique on any Goal that you have. Before you can achieve the Goal, you have to REALLY see yourself as BEING the sort of person who would not only achieve that Goal, but you have to really see yourself as being the sort of person who has ALREADY achieved this Goal.
So if you want to be fit and healthy, then see yourself as being a person who is ALREADY fit and healthy. If you want to be a millionaire, see yourself as ALREADY having a million dollars. Engrave that FEELING of how it feels to be that sort of person into your subconscious mind. That will in turn become your Identity. Whatever you see as being your Identity at your core, will unavoidably show up as your REALITY!
So work out what is your most important Goal for this year, then work out what would your Identity be if you were the sort of person who had already achieved this Goal. Make that Identity your own and you WILL have that Goal show up as your reality. Let me know in the comments below what Identity YOU will choose to make your own.