How to Change Your Identity
No matter what you want to create, you must change your identity in order to create it.
Psychology Today defines identity as consisting of past memories, experiences, relationships, and values that create one’s sense of self.
Most people’s identity is based in the past which is why they keep creating the same results.
A common belief is that your identity is fixed and made from what happens to you, not based on something you create.
But you cannot be rich if you are being poor. You cannot be in shape if you are being fat.
Being = How you see yourself.
You cannot be a certain way if you are being another way.
A lot of people take action from their identity based in the past and subsequently don’t see new results. It all comes back to how you see yourself in the following forms of identity:
- Physical Identity
- Social Identity
- Self-Identity
Identity is something we get to shape, refine, and reform throughout our lives. You can constantly up-level your identity as you grow. This doesn’t come from a starting place of hating your identity-if you hate your identity, you’ll never be able to create a new one.
Start from a place of liking who you are first, because will always prove ourselves true through our identity.
So, if you don’t like who you are to start with, you won’t be able to create a new identity.
Here’s how to change your identity.
How to Change Your Identity
There are four steps you need to take in order to change your identity:
Decide
The first step is to decide on the type of person you want to be.
To decide this, consider what your goal is and who you need to become to reach it.
There is so much freedom in knowing you get to decide who you want to be. It is not pre-determined for you when you’re born or determined by other people.
Related:
- How to Stay Committed to Your Goals
- Journal Prompts
- 6 Reasons Why New Year Resolutions Don’t Work
- How to Find Your Why
Visualize
The next step is to visualize the new you.
The brain only knows two things: the images you hold, and the words you speak.
If your goal is to lose weight, how does the slim, healthy version of you walk into a restaurant? How does she know what to choose to eat, and when to stop eating?
Maybe your new identity doesn’t struggle financially. How does she show up in terms of finances? What does she spend her money on, and what is not of value or worthy of her money? When does she know when to say “no” to a purchase? How does she make income?
Whatever your goal, visualize this new identity.
Related:
- 5 Things You Must Let Go of to Achieve Success
- 6 Reasons Why People Give Up on Their Dreams
- High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become that Way
- Grow You (online coaching)
- How to Change Your Habits
Think
The third step is to think like the identity you decide to become, who you are now visualizing in your head.
How does the new version of you think? What are the words you speak to the world and the words you speak to yourself in your head?
Your identity is shaped by your beliefs-so what are the beliefs of the future you?
I have a great personal example of this step in the process of creating a new identity:
For the longest time-starting from a young age-I had this belief I would never get married.
It wasn’t because I couldn’t settle down-in fact, prior to my husband, I hardly dated, period. I wasn’t interested in dating anyone unless I thought the relationship had the potential to last (and even then I got it wrong a few times).
But I used past experiences and relationships to assume this identity I wasn’t worthy of marriage, that it was this unobtainable thing for me, so it was just easier to believe this lie.
Sure enough, I created results that confirmed this belief. It took until I was 32 years old to create a new identity as a woman viable for marriage. I remember when this belief finally clicked for me, and I ended up meeting my husband on a chance encounter the following month.
Related:
- How to Set Goals and Achieve Them
- 3 Ways to Expand Your Thinking Capacity
- How to Close Your Identity Gap
- Dream Year
- How Successful People Think: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life
Do
The last step is to do what she does-the woman you decided to become, who you have visualized and started to think like.
Use what you have, with where you are. Then, put yourself in new surroundings. They help shape new identities.
Putting yourself in new surroundings challenges your way of thinking and how you see yourself.
I think this is why so many people struggle at the gym-especially when they are brand new.
Some people are so stuck in their old/current identity of being out of shape and not someone who takes care of their body that the gym is an intimidating place to be. Unfortunately for many people, the challenge becomes too much and they give up.
Whether you start going to the gym or start frequenting another space or environment that challenges the way you see yourself, don’t give up. Creating a new identity is uncomfortable and challenging-but that’s how new identities are created.
You can even use style to change your identity.
There is a term that was created by Hajo Adam and Adam D. Galinsky in 2012 called “enclothed cognition” that states clothing has an effect on a person’s mental process and the way they think, feel, and function. Clothing influences your confidence, thinking, and more.
Related:
- 9 Questions to Ask Yourself to Find Your Purpose
- 10 Ways to Improve Your Self-Image
- 4 Ways Your Environment Impacts Your Future Self
Before You Go
If you aren’t changing and evolving, you aren’t growing.
Change is uncomfortable-like letting a part of you die. Letting go of that habit, that familiarity of the comfortable, in order to create something better, is hard. But the end result is oh so rewarding.
Who do you want to become this year?
Visualize her often. She is within reach, within you.
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