One of the things I always tell my clients when it comes to building long term healthy habits is to set your goal but if you find that you have self sabotaged on maintaining the healthy habits then it may be best to set the longer term goal which is usually associated with an external reward such as losing 10lbs but to then turn the majority of your focus into BECOMING the type of person that can actually achieve that goal which is working on your identity
Of course having a bigger picture vision is great. Having visualization sessions to see your future self succeeding is great to reinforce good habits, but in general, your day to day, moment to moment focus should not be on the outcome (external) but on the identity you must adopt to achieve those goals (internal).
Your actions are driven by your identity. If you have an identity of being someone who procrastinates then a big health goal may seem daunting because it goes against the nature you have built. Because losing 10lbs is about maintaining a series of habits over the long term which will accumulate into a result of some sort. Now those actions can come from pushing through with willpower or you can take small, progressive actions and decisions in favour of the new identity as a healthy person you are trying to build. This actually removes the pressure of reaching that big goal because your work is in the day to day not in constantly focussing on how you want to lose that 10lbs and always having that mirror reflecting back at you that you aren’t there yet which strips confidence and motivation. Vs just trying to build up the identity of being a healthy person based on small actions and choices on a day to day basis. This is like winning at small goals daily, which BOOSTS confidence and will slowly but surely make you want to do more because it feels rewarding to make decisions based on your identity and values. It’s like you no longer have to wait until you have reached your goal to feel accomplished you are actually winning every day and that is way more fun!
So I had to apply this principle to me growing my business. When I looked at the thought of one day having a million followers and being a successful coach that had financial freedom for the present and future, it just seemed so overwhelming. Even now at times when I think about the outer reward of high financial compensation and lots of followers (outer rewards) I can FEEL the lingering old identity questioning if that is even possible for me. And that identity has EVERY right to question because based on my current actions, based on all the years of self-sabotaging the old identity would be right, I CAN’T reach that goal. Which is why I need a new identity and thus new habits that support the new identity (inner rewards). And so I started with a first step. Which was to start an email list, and just creating that new email list came with a list of tasks such as creating a free offer, signing up to an email marketing service, updating my website and creating an offer so I had something to actually offer the people who found my free offer interesting. No point in creating a free offer and getting people interested and then when they look me up they find an out of date, amateur looking website that was terrible at conveying what I actually do. Each of of those tasks also had to be broken down into smaller tasks, such as finding someone to redo my website, rewriting the copy on the website etc etc. With each small task I was sure to acknowledge my action towards building my new identity. The completion of each small action built a little more confidence. The confidence builds motivation to keep going and that is how I stay on track. I don’t worry about if this will even work, I don’t worry about if I’m on the right path to get the big outer reward goal. I just take the small steps and focus in the present moment. And interestingly enough the more I put effort and energy into these small daily actions the more I attract the right people and resources onto my path to ensure I AM doing the right things.
When you live by your values and the identity you are building your wins are more frequent because they occur every time you take action towards building the identity that you want. This may be as simple as drinking water instead of pop, taking the stairs instead of the escalator. Making it to your Zumba class even though you were tired. Going to bed at a decent time because you don’t want to feel tired during the day and have to fight the urge to not follow through on your healthy habits (something that is very difficult to do when you are tired).
In my case the day to day choices towards my renewed identity as an entrepreneur health coach with goals of great success would be writing posts so that my website doesn’t look like its been abandoned, updating my website (or getting someone to do it for me), creating my free offer, and sending my first email campaign. Will this result in me getting a million followers and million dollars worth of coaching clients? These actions alone probably won’t but just getting all of this done did boost my confidence exponentially and for the first time EVER I feel excited rather than dread about what my next steps will be after I send the email campaign. Which besides creating an editorial calendar for when and what to post I don’t know what my next set of steps will look like. I will determine that only once I send the campaign so as not to overwhelm myself.
As my confidence grows and I build my identity I can then shift my focus to the BIG goal and the outer rewards I am seeking. I believe focussing on the outer reward or the big picture helps speed up the manifestation of what you want as long as you use that focus along with intentional action . That’s when you can start really having fun with the universe in finding new paths and methods to reach your goal even quicker. But there is no point in doing things this way if you are still stuck in limiting beliefs about your ability to achieve that big goal. In those cases its better to focus on the day to day actions getting done and acknowledging your efforts until your confidence and identity is built up enough that you no longer need to convince yourself that it IS possible.
Identity is driven by your values and so you may need to discover your values so that you know what traits you are trying to build for your new identity.
Take some time to sit and determine what type of identity and values you would need to honour daily to reach your bigger goals in the future. Here are the values I had to add to my list as it pertained to being an entrepreneur trying to grow a business and not just living as a passionate coach that is too scared to level up due to fear of failure and feelings of overwhelm.
Here are the traits I added to my values list in becoming a better entrepreneur (although I usually only reference my top 5 core values)
- Fortitude – To stay consistent and persistent even when things feel challenging
- Self-awareness – To be aware of what “stories” I may tell myself to keep me from doing what I know needs to be done, to be aware of my habit to procrastinate when its time to “work on the business”
- Courage – To do what needs to be done when it comes to business despite fear of failure or looking silly on social media (more on this later)
- Risk taker (at the right moment)- Being aware of the right time to take risks that will bring me to the right opportunities and will help me grow my coaching business
See you in the next article where I will show you the next steps I would generally use with my health coaching clietns applied to my business.
