3 steps to align your identity with who you truly want to be!

Here’s a question for you.  How often do you stop for a minute (or several) and actually listen to the messages from your body?  Do you ever notice that sometimes those messages are in conflict from the ones coming from your head?  

Who wins??

Well, I hope the answer to that is YOU!  

It turns out that our bodies are actually more aligned with our true selves than our minds, which tend to be ruled by our egos!  So how can you say “no” to your ego, and make the choices that really matter?

It turns out that the answer is within you, and has been there all along!

Here are the 3 steps to align your identity with who you truly want to be!

Listen to Your Inner Wisdom

Research shows that developing practices such as mindfulness, meditation, self-care and healthy choices will go a long way to support a transition to a new you – less stressed, more resilient, better able to thrive in this ever-changing world.

Discover your “Why”!

In other words, ask your body what matters.  Ask who you are, and who do you want to become.  Get in touch with who you really are.  

Choosing a new habit to develop will be more successful if it’s something we deeply know to be important and valuable to our life.  

Create your True Identity 

It also turns out that your current behaviours are simply a reflection of your current identity. To change your behaviour for good, you need to start believing new things about yourself.  You need to build identity-based habits.

It also turns out that the key to building lasting habits is focusing on creating a new identity first. Your current behaviours are simply a reflection of your current identity. What you do now is a mirror image of the type of person you believe that you are (either consciously or subconsciously).  

Again, ask your body what matters.  Ask who you are and who you want to become.   

Then ask yourself “How would THIS version of you behave?”

Powerful “whys” come from INSIDE and happen when you create space to be self-aware and introspective.  By listening to your body and what it’s ready to tell you!

How can you change your behaviour through the use of not just knowing your “why” but also by taking one small step at a time?

James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, advises us to start small!  

Start by picking a habit that doesn’t need a lot of motivation.  He states that 

“Rather than trying to do something amazing from the beginning, start small and gradually improve. Along the way, your willpower and motivation will increase, which will make it easier to stick to your habit for good.”

I hope you are as excited as I am with the knowledge that we don’t have to “give in” to the decline in our health, and in our cognitive capacities.  

That there are steps we can take NOW that will literally change our life!   Small manageable habits to actually change our lives for the better!

And what are some of those manageable changes?

When we stop and go within, and listen to our Inner Wisdom, our True Selves, we will learn how to choose which aspects of ourselves could use a “reboot” and where the best starting point is for each of us!

For example, suppose you know that a healthier you would make sure to hydrate on a regular basis throughout the day with zero-calorie beverages (ever heard the expression “don’t drink your calories?”), would that inspire you, without feeling deprived, to drink more fresh water and fewer soft drinks, sugar-laced coffee, or alcohol?

Or maybe your new identity is a person who wakes up refreshed every morning (without an alarm!).  Would you get to bed early most nights?  

A "why" is your own internal motivation for pursuing a specific behaviour or course of action, and psychologists have clearly shown that intrinsic motivation beats extrinsic every time.

Powerful “whys” are the things that you WANT to do based on who you KNOW yourself, deep down inside, to be who you truly are!

Knowing your “why” also supports you in resisting temptations, especially when you find yourself in situations where external pressures are strong.  Can you relate? You go out with friends, begin the evening with a firm resolve to stick with your food plan (using that limited resource of willpower) but before you know it, you’re “enjoying” the fries, the wine and dessert!  Sound familiar?

Let's say you want to develop a regular Meditation habit - something many people have told me they have tried, and can’t get it to stick.  What if it turns out you are trying “too hard”?  You are trying to sit for 20 minutes the first time out, and find that your mind keeps wandering, giving you the impression that you have failed? That you will never be able to meditate? Sound familiar?

What if I told you that simply by focusing on taking one breath, you have begun meditating?  In other words, start small!  Make it simple!  Make it doable!  Something that you know you can do on a daily basis.  Don’t ask so much of yourself to start.  Then gradually over time, you will expand to 5 breaths, 10 breaths, 10 minutes and more!  And look at you, you are a regular meditator!  You’ve changed your identity!  And if you choose (yes, it is your choice!) to identify yourself as a meditator from the beginning, from that single first breath, it will be even easier to develop this habit!

Success is a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.   —Jim Rohn

You’ve asked your body “What Matters?”, listened deeply, begun to understand your new identity and what small/attainable habits the NEW (Resilient!) you will follow. 

But how can you further ensure that the new you will get on the habit track with sustainable daily practices? 

Create your new Identity, one that aligns with your true view of how you want to BE in life. 

Take one step and one day at a time.  

Do your best to let go of judgement. 

Build in Accountability.  Create a support network.  

Simply put, do your best to be YOU! 

Not sure what to do next?

Click the link below, and book a time with me to discuss it!