The 4-step process to become somebody you currently are not.
An essay on identity.
Once you see and understand this pattern you won’t be able to unsee it.
You have spent your entire life building up a persona, let’s call this your identity.
Your identity is your understanding of:
the things that you will do
the things you won’t do
your temperament
character traits you have
your skills & abilities
your limitations
etc.
In short, your identity is the story you tell yourself about who you are.
Which is great!
You need to have some sort of idea of who you are otherwise you would have no idea how to make decisions out in the world.
The Strongest Force
Once your identity is solidified, you’ll do anything in your power to act in a way that reinforces that what you believe to be true about yourself.
You do this because your identity is the foundation you build the rest of your life on and so you want to know it’s not going to be changing all the time.
You want to build your life on bedrock, not sand.
If your identity starts shifting around, that could cause massive chaos and disorder in your life.
And to our little monkey minds: chaos & disorder = no bueno.
Here’s an example.
Let’s say you identify as a “gym bro.”
You will build a whole life around this persona and it’ll impact:
The foods you eat (protein, steak, eggs, chick, rice)
The relationships you choose to keep (other gym bros, gym gals, people who prioritize fitness)
The habits you develop (gym at 7 AM everyday, meal prep on Sundays)
The clothes you wear (stringer tanks, shorts that show off your awesome calves)
The lifestyle you choose to live (revolves around your gym time and eating)
If one day you woke up and said:
“You know what, dumbbells are stupid and I had the stinky smell at the gym. I’m done with it!”
That could cause massive change in your life.
You’d have to change all of those things we just listed.
So the internal force to stick to the story of our identity is pretty strong.
One of the strongest forces in your life.
If you don’t believe me, just think about your own life for a second.
What is something you believe yourself to be? Something you identify with.
Are you a runner? A mother? A good friend? An honest man? A polite woman?
How hard is it to get yourself to do the actions that person does?
Probably not hard.
You probably just do those things without even thinking about it.
That’s the internal force doing it’s job. Making it easy. Holding your life together.
Another fun way to think about this is to think of your identity as a paranoid publicist.
It’s in charge of your schedule, your communications, and making sure that your actions are aligned with the image you are projecting out to the world.
Your publicist is hyperactive and always on top of making sure the story lines up.
“Okay dope, I have a publicist now, but why should I care about this identity crap?”
Great question. Let’s rip on this for a second.
Two Sides of the Same Coin
So you get it now. The internal force propping up your identity is powerful af.
Let’s talk about what this means for you.
There are two sides to this coin.
If you feel aligned with your identity then it’s pretty awesome that you’ve got this internal force pushing you towards behaviors that you want to be doing.
It feels “easy” to do the things that you know you should be doing. Great!
On the flip side, if your identity has you feeling trapped into a place you don’t want to be, it can feel like a very strong force is pulling you down.
The same force, but instead of lifting you up, it’s keeping you down. And that’s not what we want at all.
So this framework that I’m about to share is to help you if you feel like your identity is holding you down.
It’s not a “quick fix” type of solution.
I have used this process like 4-5 times and it ALWAYS works when given enough time and effort.
And to be honest, sometimes it can happen without you even being aware of it, but when you look back at your transformation, you’ll realize it followed the same steps I’m about to outline.
For reference, here were some of my identity shifts:
Night owl → Early riser
Computer science guy → Photographer
Hated going to the gym → Love going to the gym
Hated running → Love running
Blogger → Essay Writer (super recent transformation)
Alright let’s get into the tactical stuff.
The Process
Here is the process for changing your identity:
The Spark
Getting over the Hump
Change the Story
Full Buy-In
1 - The Spark
Every change starts with a look in the mirror.
Facing the music.
Leveling with yourself.
Being completely honest with where you are at, and wanting more for yourself.
But typically you don’t get to this moment by chance.
Something happens that nudges you towards this moment.
We call that thing “the spark” and it’s usually an emotionally charged moment.
It could be:
a conversation with a friend
a traumatic experience
reading a book
going to a live event
a stressful situation you are in
turning a year older
moving cities
journaling and asking yourself hard questions.
It doesn’t matter where it comes from as long as it interrupts your normal patterns and gets you to face yourself.
But remember change doesn’t happen in this moment.
The spark doesn’t do the work for you… it only inspires you to face the music and do the work yourself.
So this is the first step in the journey, you’ve had a spark. A moment where you realized you wanted to change.
To improve, grow, get better.
And now you are on the path, but it is just getting started.
2 - Getting over the Hump
Now comes the hard part.
You’ve decided you want to change.
But remember your identity is likely very tied up with your past story.
And it is not going to go out without a fight.
Example.
Yesterday, you met somebody who was in their 50s, out of shape, and was not able to play with their kids.
That shook you to your core and you decided that can’t be you.
However, you are currently on a path headed straight there. And so you’ve realized you need to make some changes.
Your plan is to become a runner to stay in shape so you can play with your kids when you are older.
And here’s where it gets tricky.
You are, what we call, “before the hump.”
The “hump” is the point in which your identity reluctantly accepts your new reality and starts fighting to reinforce it.
But you aren’t there yet.
You use this new vision of the future to muster the energy and strength to go on your first run.
And here comes that internal monologue.
It says things like:
“Why are you doing this? You aren’t a runner.”
“You look so stupid while you are running. Everybody is looking at you.”
“You aren’t gonna stick to this. You’ll quit just like everything else you start.”
Damn! Your internal monologue is a savage.
But as we explained earlier, there is a reason for this.
Your identity is strictly doing this to try to protect itself.
It doesn’t want your whole world to shift so it’s doing whatever it can to keep you in the same place.
Change = scary.
But your identity doesn’t understand that actually staying the same is much scarier in the long run.
Knowing that your identity is just trying to protect you can help you be ready for those weaponized thoughts.
When they come, acknowledge them, thank your internal monologue for trying to keep you safe, and then keep going.
3 - Change the Story
Now that you are aware of the hump and how to navigate the pre-hump times, let’s talk about the story you are telling yourself.
Your identity still believes your old story, which is clear by the savage thoughts it throws your way when you are trying to do something new.
But that’s okay.
Our mission is to start writing the new story.
Writing new story = taking new actions.
I’m going to say it one more time for the people in the back.
Writing your new story is done by taking new actions.
The actions you take are the pen you use to write your new story.
If you keep taking the same actions, you keep writing the story.
If you take new action, you start writing a new story.
A great strategy to help wrap your head around this it to use what’s called an “Evidence Document” (shoutout to my buddy Tadzio for this concept)
Here’s how it works.
Start a new note on your favorite notes app.
Title it “I am a __<insert new identity you want>_______”
Then every time you take an action that confirms that you are your new identity, write it down in this note.
This does 2 things:
Keeps your small wins top of mind and allows you to visually see the momentum you are building towards your new identity
Can be used as ammunition against your old story when you have negative thoughts saying “you aren’t this way.” You can point to your list and say “Actually, based off this hard evidence, I kind of am this way.”
Powerful stuff.
Like anything in life, this cool concept will only help you if you do it consistently.
Write in it daily, review it weekly.
Another thing I like to do is have visual reminders all around me that reinforce the new identity, and get rid of anything that is reinforcing the old one.
This is why you see people completely change their wardrobe or do something crazy with their hair when they are going through an identity crisis.
They are trying to reinvent themselves.
This is all part of “changing the story.”
And all these small things start to align to this new vision of who you want to be.
4 - Full Buy-In
This is the best part.
This is when you finally get “over the hump” and your identity adopts the new version of yourself.
Your identity is kind of like a bandwagon fan. It just wants to root for whatever team is doing well this year. And so if you prove to your identity that this new version of you is on the come up, it’ll jump ship so quick and start to root for “new you.”
And that’s when things get easier.
Because now your identity is fighting for thing thing you want, instead of fighting against it.
You no longer have to “get yourself to go on a run”, you effortlessly plan your runs into your day because “that’s what runners do.”
At this point, the results and benefits of your new activity start to come as a byproduct of your new identity.
In my experience it usually takes anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months of consistent effort to get “over the hump” but I’ve also seen people do it seemingly overnight.
Wild stuff.
Wrap Up
So long story short, when it comes to changing your identity:
Recognize a spark
Get over the hump
Change the story
Get full buy-in from your identity
I hope this blog was helpful to you in some way. I really love breaking down these topics as I feel they are applicable to anybody in life who wants to make a change for the better.
And if nobody has told you recently then let me be the one to say it: I believe in you. You can change anything in your life that you want to.
You have made changes in the past, and you can make changes now.
You got this.
IF YOU MADE IT THIS FAR, PLEASE ANSWER THIS POLL.
Until next time,
Flickman
BONUS CHALLENGE: If you want to see if all this identity crap is real I’ve got a challenge for you. This weekend, go out in a part of town you usually wouldn’t. Wear something you usually wouldn’t. And don’t introduce yourself the way you usually do. You don’t have to lie, but maybe when people ask what you do, don’t say “I do sales at a med device company.” Say “I actually am working on making my first painting.” Just do this, see how you feel, and report back to me.
Blog Update
I had dinner with my friend Tadzio at Cafe Himalaya in East Village last night.
Tadzio also writes a blog but he calls his writing “essays” instead of “blogs.”
Genius. What was I thinking calling this a blog.
What is this, 2014?
So from here on out, I’ll be referring to my writings as “essays” or “letters.”
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*Side Note: One of my greatest joys is navigating through the tricky maze of human existence, taking notes on my experience, getting through to the other side, and packaging those notes up into a blog essay that includes:
Easy-to-follow frameworks
Stories & Examples
Graphics
Jokes (so people will enjoying reading)
I overanalyze everything and so writing these essays helps to give purpose to my analyzing.
Hopefully they are helpful in some capacity.
Links
I reversed the order this time and made a Tik Tok about this topic before writing the blog. You can check it out here.
Sources
A lot of these ideas I have taken from some great speakers, authors, entrepreneurs & physiologists. Here are some of those people.
Good stuff man, always enjoy reading these. Keep it up!
cafe himalaya 10/10