How to upgrade your Identity

SUMMARY

• The reason why most people feel lost or go through identity crises at some point of their life is simply because they forgot to define who they wanted to be and to make this identity evolve with them through the years.
• Identity is never fixed, and you have to be the one taking ownership for it every day! You can choose it, you can reshape it, you can update it to empower you for the future.
• Discover in this article the 3 simple steps to upgrade your identity to serve you instead of limiting you!

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

Have you ever thought about upgrading your identity? Have you actually ever truly reflected on how you are defining your current identity and how it is impacting your success? Or are you just waiting for your next identity crisis to tell you who you were meant to be?

As we go through life, we sometimes forget completely that our identity is in constant evolution, that it will gain in complexity while we change of roles or move to different seasons of our lives. We also often forget to simply define what we are all about. Instead, we end up letting external sources define it for us. We take unreliable personality tests to help us understand how we behave, what job we should be doing... We listen to other people interpreting our personality and actions through their own filters and putting us in a box with an inaccurate label on it! We get stuck into cliché versions of who we could truly be or we rebel vigorously trying to prove people wrong. We keep playing small because of all the limiting beliefs this has created and we end up unfulfilled because we know deep down there is more to us than what we are showing to the world.

"Who am I?" is a very existential question to answer, I'll admit that to you! But it is one of questions that will unleash your potential if you challenge yourself to reflect about it every day. To show up authentically, you need clear answers about who you want to be, how you want to contribute to the world, how you want to interact with others. To grow towards your full potential and feel the fulfilment you deserve, you need to know what you have to align your actions towards every day. Defining your identity is a MUST not a nice to do. It is something you must start take ownership if you have not done it so far.

And the great news with you defining your own identity consciously? You can choose what you want to be all about. You can reshape it if your current one is outdated. You can upgrade it to make it empowering and at the service of your future success. You could even decide today to be a whole new person if you wanted to!

Don't believe me? A couple of months ago, I decided to volunteer as a crew member for one of Tony Robbins's virtual events. I thought I would be okay as a typically classified "low-energy introvert", I would be at home behind my computer, not a big deal! Turned out, as a volunteer, we also have to register participants before the event and get them pumped-up with high energy and enthusiasm. If you know Tony Robbins, you can understand why this was a massive stretch outside my energy comfort zone! I just decided to go for it, to leave behind the "introvert" label I have been quite frankly tired of hearing for the past years, and nailed it! I registered hundreds of people live on Zoom, took ownership of being the one bringing the energy to the room and loved the experience. Being energetic is something that I have now integrated into my identity!

I want to show you how you can do this for yourself to by sharing with you 3 simple steps to upgrade your identity to serve you instead of limiting you!

Step 1: Review how you define yourself right now

Limiting "I am" beliefs and negative scripting of your abilities will cost you a lot if you are not aware of them. Empowering beliefs and positive scripting can do wonder if you start prioritizing them. The first thing I would encourage you to do is answer this simple question "Who are you?" out loud and listen to anything that could be a limitation in disguise.

What are you describing yourself based on - roles, jobs, titles, looks, achievements, personality? Are you defining yourself for yourself or are you systematically comparing yourself to others? What words/adjectives are you using? What do you feel when you are hearing them? Are they representative of who you truly think you are and of your full potential? Are they actually your own words or those of other people around you? Are they aligned with who you might want to be in the future and allowing me room for growth? What are the behaviours that made you/others so certain that you are this person? What brought you to use these words at the first place?

Go deep and with full honesty here. The more pain you can create around current limiting identity beliefs, the easier it is going to be for you to start taking responsibility and define who you don't want to be anymore. The more positive thinking you can create around empowering beliefs, the more you will be able to use them to boost confidence and self-esteem while you upgrade to another level.

Step 2: Decide to be positively bold about your future

Once you have made a review about who you don't want to be anymore and what parts of your current identity you would love to use more, the next step is to start defining your upgraded identity by taking decisions!

Who do you want to be in the future in each of the roles you are playing in your life? Who do you want to be for yourself? How do you want to interact with others? How do you want to contribute to the world? What new strengths are you going to develop? Challenge yourself to be positively bold when you answer these questions! Identities that make you feel and believe that you are ready for action, capable of more than now and deserving to get the success you want, will help you reach your next level faster!

The next step is to make sure that you keep this new identity in your mind every day. One thing I do with my clients is ask them to define 3 words/adjectives to anchor their identity on and make sure that they can easily connect with them every day whether it is via verbal affirmations, reminders, passwords. I also dig deep with them on the "why it is important" for them to use these words as descriptors, what does it mean for them and what impact they expect on their lives. This helps making the words even more powerful.

Step 3: Start living up to your new identity today

You don't need to wait until you are at your next level or until you think you have reached this new identity to start behaving like if you already had. Actually, if you start being that person already, you can get there faster.

So don't wait to be a manager before you start taking leadership and support your colleagues in their career. Don't wait until you are promoted to start contributing with more excellence to your company. Don't wait until you are a billionaire CEO to start feeling confident in your ability to run a business. Don't wait to have lost 10kg to start talking positively about your body. Just think about - What would a person like this be doing? What would your future you tell you to do? Who do you know already that could be a role model for you to follow? What are the exact behaviours, beliefs and actions that have to become your standard ones? Anything that can help you step into the shoes of your ideal future you will be helpful!

Try to make the process enjoyable as well if you can and be playful with this new identity while you are working your way through the changes. For instance, if you are going on a diet, don't just be a person losing weight - be a Super Salad Lover or the Top Elite Athlete of your own world! Creating a fun identity can help you commit and condition yourself, plus they are fun to share and can get you some extra social accountability! Another supportive technique is to give a nickname to your future you (the bolder, the better) so that you can channel this alter ego every time you are getting challenged and want a strong reminder of what you are trying to achieve.

And whatever you do, make sure to take actions and monitor your progress to make the commitment to this new identity even deeper until it becomes natural. The fact to have attached some level of pain from your review of who you did not want to be anymore and the positive decisions you have taken will definitely help you. But on the way to change, people will challenge you and doubt this new identity you are creating. Aligned actions and monitoring will help you stay confident and on the right track. 

Did you find this article insightful? Let me know in the comments!

?Clo - Your Expanded Coach