The last couple of my blog posts have been about the importance of goal setting but in this one I’m going to discuss goal setting and identity shift. One of the reasons you might find it so difficult to work on your affiliate business, or make change in any area of your life, is because of your identity. “Who” you see yourself as, has a great affect on what you can achieve, because it’s embedded in your very being.
For example, if you see yourself as someone who “struggles”, you might perpetuate that reality because it’s how you identify yourself: “I am one who struggles“. It is “me“. An identity gives us congruency and safety. When we make a conclusion about “who” we are in life, it’s a form of security which the ego can cling to. It is the self image. People get to know us as that person, and they continue to reenforce that false “self”.
When you try and change things you meet resistance, both from yourself and your circle of friends/family. But mostly it is from your “old” version of yourself trying to cling to its reality. You can’t be a “successful entrepreneur” and at the same time “one who struggles” , for example. You can’t be a “fit athlete”, if you see yourself as “fat and lazy”. One of those identities clashes with the other. So, in order to make progress in any area of life, an old part of yourself (an old identity) has to die!
Goal Setting & Identity Shift – Kill Your (Old) Self
But it won’t give up without a fight. Your old self has been around for a long time. You’ve had fun together! You have become comfortable as “that” person you created! That’s the reason that when you set about making change in your life, in any area, there’s a battle going on. Your old self is fighting for its survival! It’s a paradigm which you’ve entrenched in your mind for perhaps years of your life.
A new “self” will rock the boat. Friends will say things like “that’s not ‘you'”! When you come to “do the work”, you’ll kick and scream because that’s where the old self is fighting for its existence. It resists change because it wants to retain the status quo. It wants to stay alive!
But you want change and the best way to change things permanently is through self growth and an identity “shift”. That won’t happen without a fight, and without losing your old self in the process.
Goal Setting & Identity Shift – Why Goals Often Don’t Work
You might have had some problems with goal setting. You set a goal, and when you come to do the work, you get blocked. There’s resistance. Resistance is anything which comes up which you use to not do the work you need to do to accomplish your goal.
Your mind tells you a story about the action you should be taking and it might take a form such as this:
- I’m not good enough
- I just can’t find the motivation
- What if I should be doing something else
- I don’t really care about the goal anyway
- I’m not cut out for this
- I’d rather not do it
- It won’t matter anyway
You avoid doing the work and the payoff is that you stay the same. Your identity remains in tact. But your situation doesn’t change either. A goal can help you do the work needed in order to change your identity. Once you have an identity shift, you become the person who does the work. But you must push through the pain otherwise you’ll only perpetuate what you already have. You’ll avoid the work, make excuses, and your reality won’t shift.
Summary
A goal sets the wheels in motion and gives you motivation to make change. However, once you have set a goal, you’ll come up against resistance. This will come in the form of your old self justifying why it doesn’t want to shift, why it doesn’t need to shift.
Observe this resistance for what it really is – your old self putting up a fight! In order to affect change you need an identity shift towards the person who does the work in order to get the outcome you really want – to achieve the goal.
the “old” you is the person who struggles, procrastinates and avoids the work you need to do to achieve your goal. The “new” you (version 2), is the person you must become in order to achieve your goal. The “battle” is between the old you and the new you who is trying to manifest itself through your goal.
Once you become aware of this battle, you can see the resistance for what it really is – the older version of you battling for its existence! This is explained much more succinctly in this video by Charlie Morgan and it’s well worth the hour and ten minutes of your day if you’re struggling with your goals.
