Do you have a huge one-time goal that you have always wanted to accomplish but somehow keep escaping you? April Shprintz presents two things that could be holding you back from achieving that thing you never had and what must be done to fix them.
—
Listen to the podcast here
Are These Two Things Holding You Back?
I am so glad you’re here. Let me ask you a question. Are you one of those people who has this one thing in their life that they really want to do, that they have always wanted to accomplish, that just keeps eluding them? Here’s what I mean.
Self-Belief
Maybe it’s a certain amount of money that you want to make. Maybe it’s some fitness goal. Maybe it’s some relationship you want to have. Whatever it is, there’s this thing that no matter how successful you are in every other area of life, you can be someone who is just an absolute winner everywhere, but this one thing never goes right for you. If you’re that person, I have two things that might be holding you back, and they’re simpler than you think, and they’re fixable. The first one is self-belief. We’ve talked about this a lot of different times.
Self-belief is basically just really believing that whether you have the skills or not, you can acquire them. Whether you have the knowledge or not, you can learn it. Whatever it is that you want to do is possible for you. It’s understanding that you wouldn’t want to do it if it wasn’t possible. We all have varying degrees of self-belief, but ultimately, it is your belief that you can do something that will really guide your actions and take you through being able to accomplish whatever it is. What the real doozy is your identity, your personal identity. Who are you? When you say, “I am,” what are the things that you say after that? I’m going to use myself as an example because I was someone who had an incredible amount of self-belief my entire life, still do.
It is your belief that you can do something that will guide your actions and help you accomplish your ultimate goal. Share on XAs far as identity, I had a bunch of different identities. The one that I really identified with, which had a lack of self-belief in it, was “I am not an athlete.” Interestingly, I was only told that once, and I was only told it by one person, but I grabbed onto it. I made that true for myself for much of my life. Even when I got a black belt in Taekwondo, even when I won some CrossFit competitions, it didn’t matter what I did, in my head, I wasn’t an athlete. Therefore, I always struggled with being what I would consider fit. What I couldn’t get past was the fact that I identified as someone who was not an athlete. That made it easier not to show up for myself. That made it easier for me not to prioritize nutrition, or sleep, or hydration, or my workouts.
Identity Shift
Work could get in the way of it. Friends could get in the way of it. Other responsibilities and commitments could get in the way of that because I’m not an athlete. What’s interesting is how changing your identity can both increase your self-belief and also really influence those consistent behaviors that you do over time to allow you to get that thing that you’ve never had. Let’s say, in this example, you’re someone who does not believe you’re a person who makes over $100,000 a year. People in your family didn’t, or people said that you couldn’t, or you just think that’s a really high number. Maybe I should be saying $250,000. Let’s say you have this amount of money, but you don’t believe you’re the person who makes that amount of money. You will make that true.
If instead, you change your identity, “This is the way I’ve behaved up until today, but then I heard this and I decided I am someone who makes $100,000 a year, $250,000 a year, whatever it is,” then you’re going to decide how does that person behave? What kind of choices does that person make? What are the things that the person who’s already there does differently? This is a huge mindset shift because the quickest way to manifest the life and things we want, the quickest way to become who we want to be, is to act as if we already are because we’ll adopt those behaviors, we’ll be consistent, and we’ll make the right choices for ourselves. You take your self-belief, believing that you wouldn’t want it if it wasn’t possible for you.
Anything that you can imagine that you want to do, you absolutely can. You just need to put in the consistent effort to do it and then change your identity from the person who doesn’t have whatever it is that you want to the person who does. Since you already are the person who has that thing that you want, how are you acting differently? This, for me, was a game changer, and yes, it’s when it came to athletics, looking at things as if I was already there. Interestingly, you could be doing this really well in various areas of your life, but you might have that one thing that is just a sticking point for you. Taking the time to identify what your identity is in relation to that goal and what your identity would look like if you already had that goal, and then taking yourself through those behaviors as if you already were that person, will make all the difference. Here’s to your success.
