Effective Self-Improvement Starts With Changing Your Self-Identity
How to become the person you want to be
You will struggle to improve your life if you don’t change how you see yourself.
YouTube videos, books and coaches won’t do you much good if every time you look in the mirror you see a disappointment.
Simply put, the person you believe you are, shapes your whole life. It affects the choices you make, habits you adopt and goals you set.
What I’m getting at is that the first step to self-improvement needs to be changing your self-identity!
Start by resetting your mind
Your past does not equal who you will be in the future. The future is underdetermined.
Resetting your mind means you must get rid of all these preconceived perceptions of yourself.
Just because you screwed up in your past relationship, doesn’t mean you will again in your current one. Just because you lost your basketball game, doesn’t mean you will lose your next one.
Every high achiever you can name has had numerous failures before they saw success. If they had let their past determine their future, they would not be where they are today.
Don’t make this fatal mistake.
Each second is a new chance to be who you want to be.
Decide who you want to be
Self-improvement requires knowing what you want to improve on. To properly do that, you need to know who you want to be.
Do you want to be someone who is in shape? Great, now you know you need to work out.
Do you want to be rich? Now you know you must educate yourself and work hard.
You can be whoever you want to be.
Make this important decision knowing that you can always change later as well. Once this decision is made, you can at least get started.
Next, ask yourself, “How would the person who I want to be, act?”
This is important because once you understand who this person is, you can begin to act accordingly. By acting like them, naturally, you will make the appropriate decisions.
If you identify as someone who is in shape, you will eat healthier, sleep better and work out more (or harder).
If you see yourself as someone who is rich, you will make better financial choices, continue to educate yourself and connect with the right people.
So, decide who you want to be, and start identifying as that person.
Find positive role models
High achievers always have a great network of like-minded people. You need to build the same thing.
Once you are surrounded by people you look up to, you will be able to easily identify as the person you want to be.
If everyone around you is in shape, you will naturally start acting like someone who is in shape. You will make similar decisions because that is the environment you are in.
Have you ever noticed how the guys who are jacked have jacked friends?
Exactly.
This isn’t always easy for everyone though. That’s why you start by finding the right role models.
The best part is, you don’t even have to know them personally.
You can find coaches online to serve as your role models. If you can’t afford that, make someone famous your role model.
If you want to be in great shape, and Georges St-Pierre is your role model, you will easily make the right decisions to get you there.
And as you see results, it’ll become easier to identify as that person.
Be the person you want to be
Of course, the easiest way to start identifying as the person you want to be and see that self-improvement is to become that person.
Sounds obvious, right?
Once you start seeing progress, your identity becomes undeniable. That’s why it is important to track your progress.
When you’re in the gym, and you notice your stair climber cardio improving, your bench press weight increasing and your abs coming in – you will identify as a guy who is in shape.
Your behaviour changes and your results do too.
I’ve previously had the issue of not going to the gym consistently.
Things would get busy with work, I would start to skip the gym, and then my progress would diminish.
But, when I did start to go consistently, I started to see gains, I felt better and I started identifying as a guy who is in shape.
The identity shift helps me stay consistent and then the progress shows and continues to grow.
The identity shift is what started the real self-improvement.
Brace yourself for discomfort
The journey of never-ending self-improvement is uncomfortable. You go through significant changes – changes that can shock you to your core.
If you are not prepared for this discomfort, you will have trouble remaining consistent with these changes and fail to see improvements.
This lifelong journey will require you to constantly remind yourself that it is normal to feel uncomfortable at times. This feeling is a sign that you are making powerful changes.
Embrace this change.
Thanks for reading.